Tongan

expand_more Description

The Tongan tradition extends from circa 2500 BP to 200 BP in the Tongan islands of the south Pacific. People were sedentary fishermen and horticulturalists. Later in the time period pigs and chickens played a greater role in their diet. They stopped using ceramics between 2000 BP and 1200 BP. Political centralization increases through time with large mounds and platforms indicative of the rise in chiefly power appearing around 1000 BP. By the time of European contact Tongan society was ranked with a tripartite paramount chiefdom whose hegemony included all of present day Tonga, Wallis and Futuna, Tikopia, and Niue.

Identifier

Region

• Oceania

Subregion

• Polynesia

Subsistence Type

• horticulturalists

Samples

• SRS

Countries

• Tonga