A Brief History of "A'asu"

A Brief History of A’asu

Most of what we know about the contact between the first European party of exploration to land on Tutuila and the Samoans comes from the published journals of the famed French explorer LaPérouse. Though his ill-fated expedition never made it back to France, he sent his journals back to France after a port-of-call in Botany Bay. This is the only record now that we have of the “A’asu massacre” (Dunmore 1994).

The Islands of American Samoa had actually been noted in 1768 by another French explorer, DeBouganville, who made contact with the easternmost islands in the archipelago. However, LaPérouse lead the first expedition to set foot on Tutuila. LaPérouse first arrived in the Samoan archipelago, then called the Navigator Islands, in December of 1787. LaPérouse actually came with two ships, Boussole, which he captained, and L’Astrolabe, captained by the second in command, Paul-Antoine-Marie Fleuriot DeLangle. As LaPérouse was landing at Fagasa, De Longle attempted to land at A’asu in order to get a supply of fresh water. De Longle must have passed by the several intervening embayments before settling on A’asu as a potential source. On his first landing the Samoans greeted him warmly. There, they traded and filled some water casks at the spring fed A’asu stream.

Plaque on A'asu Monument

However, on the morning of December 11th, De Longle and a small landing party returned to fill more water casks. Reportedly, at this time they were greeted by a large host of Samoans – far more than lived at A’asu. De Longle, unable to effectively communicate with them, passed out some trinkets in an attempt to placate a crowd that he sensed was unsettled.

In 1882 the remains of the victims were discovered and a small monument was erected at the site. French warships are reported to have visited occasionally. In 1887 the remains of De Longle were reportedly presented to Captain Bénier, commanding the Fabert, and return to France in 1889, where they were interred in the church of St. Louis in Brest. This church was destroyed during the Second World War, and today his remains are located in the chapel of the Ecole Navale near Brest (Dunmore 1994).

Virtually nothing is known of the prehistory of A’asu itself. However, investigations at several other key sites in American Samoa reveal the possibilities for coastal habitation sites like A’asu. The best estimate is that the first inhabitants of American Samoa settled sometime just before 3000 B.P. The earliest site on Tutuila, the main island in the American Samoa group, is ‘Aoa, with a radiocarbon dates of 2,890±140 B.P., and 2,460 ±110 (Clark 1993b). Both are dates on charcoal with d13C corrections. The oldest sample was collected from above (stratigraphically) the deepest pottery finds. It is clear, then, that no later than 2,750 B.P. (at 2 s) there is a human presence on the island. The ‘Aoa site is by far the oldest on Tutuila. Other well-known sites are found to have a temporal context within the last 1,000 years, including the basalt quarries at Leone (Clark 1993b; Leach and Witter 1990; Leach and Witter 1987), and Alega (Clark 1993a, 1993b). Comparatively few sites in American Samoa have been thoroughly dated, thus the paucity of ages from what would amount to the middle prehistoric period in Samoa (1,000-2,000 B.P.) is undoubtedly an artifact of sample size.

One other early site is known, this from the island of Ofu. The site of To’aga (AS-13-1) was found to be as old as 3,820±70 B.P. by Kirch, Hunt, and Tyler (1989). They excavated a series of test units and found a deeply stratified sequence of pottery, though no Lapita-ware (Kirch 1990; Kirch et al. 1989). Radiocarbon ages were obtained from samples of marine shell discovered in the same stratigraphic context as thin-ware ceramics. Taken at face value this site predates the ‘Aoa site on Tutuila by over a millennium. However, as marine shells obtain their carbon from the ocean, and not the atmosphere, radiocarbon dates on them tend to be older -- on the order of 400 years on average (Stuiver and Braziunas 1993). Even so, the site’s early ceramic component could be in excess of 3,000 years old, making it the oldest site in American Samoa. Again, the absence of distinctive Lapita pottery is significant.

Clark (1993a) gave two suggestions to account for this fact: 1) The Malifanua site on Upolu Island, Samoa was not actually occupied by “Lapita people,” but rather, that those living there acquired Lapita style pottery through trade; or, 2) the earliest Lapita peoples to colonize Samoa abandoned the distinctive pottery style quickly and uniformly throughout the archipelago, instead adopting an unpainted, undecorated, yet functional variant. The early dates from To’aga strongly suggest the former option, for at that time Lapita populations in Tonga, Fiji, and elsewhere in the Pacific are firmly established. As Clark (1993b) points out, this would imply that a contemporary non-Lapita population inhabited Samoa at that time. If true, this would present new problems in terms of determining their source population, or rather, in explaining why individuals from a source population that used exclusively Lapita ware would emigrate to Samoa and a priori abandon the style. The second suggestion seems more tenable, as stylistic change can occur rapidly. The thin-walled Polynesian plainware is undoubtedly as equally functional as its red-rimmed dentate-stamped counterpart. The symbolic and social significance of such a change would require an explanation that at this time is lacking.

Another possibility is that Lapita sites are rare but remained hidden. With each deep excavation that is attempted without finding Lapita pottery this possibility diminishes. It is indeed surprising that only one site in the entire Samoan archipelago has been found with Lapita wares. The excavation of A’asu will provide yet one more test of the hypothesis that makers (or traders) of Lapita pottery had reached greater Samoa.