The Dissolution of the Incised and Applied Relief Tradition: Revisiting the Transition of Pottery from Lapita to Distinctive Local Innovations

Stuart Bedford

It is now 25 years since Bedford and Clark challenged the concept of a supposed Incised and Applied Relief pottery tradition that could be identified across the southwest Pacific. It was then widely accepted that this tradition was the archaeological marker of the arrival of a new wave of different populations following Lapita across the Melanesian region as far east as Fiji. There has been a deluge of data since, across a variety of disciplines including ancient genetics. This paper provides an update on various aspects of the argument from a Vanuatu perspective and firmly concludes, as was argued decades ago, that changes in pottery traditions were more influenced by local and regional factors rather than a wave of new arrivals with new traditions across the region.