BUA · VANUA LEVU & YADUA
Explore the walls, terraces and settlements of Bua’s hillforts, and the local histories connected with them.
SETTLEMENT · DEFENCE · CONNECTIONS
Select a group to explore its sites and possible connections. These sixteen sites are a selection of Bua’s fortifications.
SETTLEMENT & POSSIBLE CONNECTIONS
These sites may have formed a connected system: an upper settlement at Seseleka, with lower places serving as lookouts, defences and food-producing areas. Tacilevu may later have become more independent.
At Seseleka, survey recorded house platforms, defensive earthworks and walls. Pond mud and shell remains were sampled for dating.
DATING THE OCCUPATION
The occupation dates remain uncertain. Broad radiocarbon ranges allow three possible chronologies. Select each to compare the periods.
Long chronology
This possibility favours the older ends of the calibrated ranges: about 1670–1680 for Seseleka, 1680 for lower Koromakawa, and 1692 for Uluinakoro. An earlier beginning is also possible, but remains uncertain.
INSIDE THE LANDSCAPE
Walls, ditches, house platforms and terraces show how people modified the ground. Fourteen of the sixteen sites were mapped in detail. The survey excluded lowland ring-ditch sites.
Pottery, shell deposits and pond sediments help investigate activities and occupation. A dated sample gives a range for that material; it does not automatically supply a fort’s construction date.
Oral traditions shared in Bua connect the sites with names, alliances and the uses of particular places.
Food and water pressures, conflict, political rivalry and environmental change may help explain occupation of the hillforts. Their relative importance remains debated.