The identification of a Marquesan adze in the Cook Islands

Abstract

We report on the provenance of an adze from the Cook Islands that was previously geochemically analysed by Sheppard, Walter and Parker (1997) but could not be assigned a source at that time because of the paucity of reference data. Drawing on basalt characterisation studies from the last two decades, we can now demonstrate that the adze most likely derives from the Marquesan island of Eiao, over 2500 km to the east. This find extends the western distribution of the Eiao basalt source, which was previously limited to the Society Islands.