ABSTRACT
The story in this chapter comes from taking years of interest and experience in Polynesian prehistory and mixing them up with a love of storytelling. The archaeologists tend to develop a passion for the eras and regions in which they work, and yet this passion is missing from most of our communications, traded away for numbers accurate to three decimal places and the sterile objectivity' of scientific language. The author's interest in plain ware pottery has to do with thinking about its position and role in the daily lives of ancient people in Tonga and Samoa. Although apparently few people settling Samoa brought with them Lapita pottery, plain ware pottery was a fundamental part of their material culture. Despite making up the vast majority or all of the pottery assemblages at early sites, plain ware pottery has not been the emphasis of much research, possibly due to its simple utilitarian style.
