The details of current thinking on linguistic prehistory in Oceania are presented elsewhere in this volume, where detailed references should be sought. If we compare the two prehistories there is indeed a striking fit, although diversity in interpretations among linguists should be acknowledged. Ross (1988, 1989) situates the Proto-Oceanic homeland in the general area of the Willaumez Peninsula (Talasea area), on the north coast of New Britain (cf. Grace 1961:364), which was as we have seen an important centre for the distribution of obsidian in Lapita times. The distribution of the Oceanic An languages and the distribution of Lapita and its successor cultures are also coincident. Ross sees an early movement of An languages to Manus, the other centre for obsidian distribution in the Lapita period, and another movement out through the Solomons into Vanuatu and New Caledonia, and ultimately to Fiji and Polynesia. This spread of a branch of Oceanic into and beyond the Solomons is matched by the distribution of the Western and Eastern Lapita sub-styles. The Central Pacific languages (Fijian, Rotuman and Polynesian) have their closest relatives in northern Vanuatu and the Eastern Lapita sub-style, which covers the same area, has its closest relation to the pottery from Malo in northern Vanuatu (Anson 1983, 1986).

In Polynesia the break-up of Proto-Polynesian into the Tongic and Nuclear Polynesian linguistic groups matches exactly the division between Tonga and Samoa in material culture during the Lapita period. Almost immediately after initial settlement at about 1000 BC dentate-stamped pottery was replaced by plainware in Samoa, while in Tonga use of some dentate stamping continued until almost the time of Christ (Kirch, Hunt and Tyler 1989; Poulsen 1987). When evidence for settlement further out into the Pacific occurs at about 200 BC or later in the Marquesas it is associated with plainware generally similar to that from Western Polynesia and Fiji (Kirch 1986). All Eastern Polynesian languages are derived from the Nuclear rather than the Tongic branch of Polynesian (see Clark 1979 for a succinct discussion of Polynesian languages).

The clear correlation of the distribution of Lapita with the distribution of Oceanic An languages suggests that Proto-Oceanic split up by about 1200 BC with the movement of Lapita culture beyond the Bismarcks. Linguistic change after that may have been extremely rapid. Proto-Central Pacific must have developed its few distinctive features around 1000 BC and Proto-Polynesian could have developed soon afterwards, possibly already starting to diverge into what became the Tongic and Nuclear Polynesian groups soon after 800 BC.

The languages of the Marianas and Belau (formerly Palau) and possibly Yap in Western Micronesia are An but not Oceanic, being of Western Malayo-Polynesian type (see Tryon, this volume). The other Micronesian languages are assigned to a subgroup of Oceanic termed Nuclear Micronesian. Although various subgrouping arguments have been put forward to link Nuclear Micronesian with other subgroups within Oceanic, there is no general agreement as to their immediate external relationships (Jackson 1986). Archaeology does not yet suggest a more specific point of dispersal in Island Melanesia. The generally plain or notched-lip pottery found in Micronesian contexts back to about 2000 years ago can be matched in a wide area of Island Melanesia from Manus to Vanuatu at the same time period.

The situation in the Bismarcks and the north-western Solomons has been complicated according to Ross (1988) by the subsequent spread of the Western Oceanic languages of the Meso-Melanesian cluster from New Britain, which may have in part replaced An languages of probable Southeast Solomonic type in Bougainville and presumably also in New Ireland. It is tempting to link this hypothesized language spread to the replacement of recognizably Lapita pottery by the incised and applied relief styles which are found from the Bismarcks to Fiji. While the linguistic influence is argued by Ross to have stopped at the southern end of Santa Ysabel in the Western Solomons, at the so-called Tryon-Hackman line, the suggested archaeological signature of this process continued further south, ultimately to Fiji. If there was a secondary movement of population from the Bismarcks to the south and east, it was a movement from the same general area as the original Lapita spread and so may not have been represented by a distinctive material culture apart from a new pottery style. It should be noted that Ross’ idea of a two-stage spread of An languages in the New Ireland-Solomons area has yet to convince other linguists working in the region (Andrew Pawley, pers.comm.).

The two other branches of Western Oceanic An, the Papuan Tip Cluster and the North New Guinea Cluster (Ross 1988), also have close parallels with the distribution of archaeological phenomena. The distribution of the Papuan red-slipped ware and its attendant material culture almost exactly matches the distribution of the Papuan Tip Cluster languages. The pottery making centre of Mailu along the South Papuan coast is now Non-Austronesian (NAn) speaking, but this is obviously a recent switch (Dutton 1982). Genetically the Mailu population is grouped with other South Coast Papuan An-speaking populations (Kirk 1989:100-101). Although much less studied, the spread of pottery use along the North New Guinea coast, and indeed up the Markham Valley as well, corresponds to the distribution of the North New Guinea Cluster An languages. The association between archaeological and linguistic distributions suggests that the movement of Papuan Tip Cluster speakers to the west along the Papuan coast took place rapidly about 1800 years ago and the time depth for the spread out from the Bismarcks area of North New Guinea Cluster languages is almost certainly within the last 2500 years.

One feature of many of the Western Oceanic languages is that they have undergone linguistic change as a result of contact with Non-Austronesian (NAn) languages, initially in the New Britain area, and subsequently as they spread to New Guinea and probably along already-trodden An paths in the Bismarcks and northern Solomons. These languages would have been the first An languages to be spoken in at least the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, which prior to 500 BC was entirely NAn-speaking. Although the associated incised and applied relief pottery styles have their origins in Lapita, they are presumably also heavily informed by the NAn cultural traditions of neighbouring groups. In this sense we can see the intrusive Austronesian Lapita tradition becoming progressively “Melanesianized” by contact-induced change and innovation to produce the range of local cultural styles found in the area in the recent past.

The movement of An speakers to mainland New Guinea in the last 2500 years may have marked the introduction of the pig, so important in the ethnographically recorded cultures particularly of the Highlands. It is noteworthy that the pig is a case where archaeological and linguistic prehistories did not at first appear to match. It has been known for some time that the word for pig is an An loan word in many New Guinea NAn languages (Blust 1976). How was this fact to be squared with evidence for pig in New Guinea at 6000 or even 10,000 years ago? The advances in archaeological dating techniques mentioned earlier now suggest that the pig may be late in New Guinea, late enough to have been brought in by An speakers.