Geoarchaeological context of Holocene subsidence at the Ferry Berth lapita site, Mulifanua, Upolu, Samoa

Abstract

The 1973 discovery of an underwater archaeological site during dredging for a ferry landing at Mulifanua on Upolu raised important unanswered questions about the prehistory of Samoa, particularly the evolution of Holocene shorelines and relative local sea levels. A cultural horizon yielding Lapita potsherds, the only decorated Lapita assemblage yet found in Samoa and dating to ca. 2.8 ka, lies at a depth of 2.25 m below modern sea level beneath a capping of cemented paleobeachrock. With fluctuating hydro-isostatic sea level taken into account, the sherd occurrence implies subsidence of a former coastline by ca. 4 m at a mean rate of 1.4 mm/yr. Shoreline features on both Upolu and nearby Savai’i are fully compatible with bulk Holocene subsidence. We attribute the observed subsidence to downflexure of the lithosphere from volcano loading centered on the Savai’i locus of historic volcanism, and conclude that any other Lapita sites that may exist in Samoa have subsided by a comparable amount. Although the Samoan linear volcanic chain resembles other Pacific hotspot tracks where active volcano loading is confined to their southeastern ends, the most voluminous Holocene eruptions in Samoa have occurred on Savai’i at the northwestern end of the exposed island chain. Samoan volcanism has evidently been influenced by lateral flexure of the Pacific plate as it moves past the northern extension of the Tonga subduction zone, and the active volcanism is apparently controlled by a longitudinal rift, which transects both Upolu and Savai’i and is superimposed upon older volcanic edifices that may record earlier hotspot volcanism. Early archaeological sites in American Samoa display a variable record of subsidence and possible uplift apparently related to volcano loading in the Manu’a Islands and possibly to the location of Tutuila in a position to be affected by uparching of lithosphere between downflexures beneath more active volcanic islands to the east and west. Bulk subsidence of Upolu and Savai’i may be the fundamental cause of damaging coastal erosion in modern Samoa.