Ha'atufunga (Royal Undertakers) at the funeral of Price Tu'i Pelehake and Princess Kaimana, Lapaha, Kingdom of Tonga. [Enlarge]
Otea Lapita Site, 2005 Excavation. Vava'u, Kingdom of Tonga. PhD student and field supervisor, Sean Connaughton serves as a scale. [Enlarge]
Tel: 778.782.4196 • Fax: 778.782.5666 • Email: burley@sfu.ca
General Research Interests
Topics of general interest and teaching specialty areas include archaeology and ethnohistory, chiefly societies, historical archaeology, archaeological resource management, Oceanian, and northwest North America. Recent field projects have been carried out in the Republic of Fiji, the Kingdom of Tonga, and the Yukon Territory of Canada.
Current Research
Excavations were undertaken at Lapita ceramic period sites in the Vava'u islands, Kingdom of Tonga from May through July 2005. This project was the final phase of a three-year SSHRC grant (2002–2005) for survey and excavations in northern Tonga focused upon first settlement, its impact and implications for early expansion into Samoa. As part of his doctoral research on ancestral Polynesian society, Sean Connaughton also supervised excavations at the Falevai site on Kapa Island in Vava'u. These projects recovered a wealth of new data and, when analyses are complete, provide the final chapters for a 15 year long study of Tonga's early colonization and its role in Polynesian origins. In conjunction, SFU and the Tongan Traditions Committee sponsored and chaired the fifth Lapita conference in Nuku'alofa, Tongatapu in August 2005. Approximately 80 delegates attended from around the world.
Initial field surveys for Lapita sites on the south coast of Viti Levu in Fiji were conducted in June 2006 as initial fieldwork under a 2006–2008 SSHRC grant. This project is to explore the relationship of Lapita settlement sites in western Fiji relative to central island Melanesia to the west and the Lau and Tongan islands to the southeast. This program was combined with SFU field school excavations at the Sigatoka Sand Dunes on western Viti Levu (see South Pacific Field School). Also initiated in 2006 was a detailed study of Lapaha, the 13th through 19th century AD capital of Tonga. This is a collaborative project with Dr. Geoffrey Clark of the Australian National University. Lapaha incorporates a series of large terraced tombs built for the sacred paramount ruler, the Tu'i Tonga. In February, these tombs were surveyed for internal burial vaults using ground penetrating radar and resistivity. They also were mapped using 3-D laser scanning technology. Interviews in February and August with the ha'atufunga (traditional undertaker titles) and other knowledgeable residents have provided a volume of traditional history both for the tombs and Lapaha in general.