| Abstract: |
Introduction: During a year-long settlement pattern study on Map Island, Yap, I found that prehistoric use of the lagoon was intensive and left many physical traces (Plate 1). Traditional fishing within Yap's fringing reef was characterized by heavy dependence upon weirs, nets, and traps of bamboo and stone. In this article I present a summary of the information obtained about Yapese stone traps, combining data from Mueller (1917) and my own observations. This will be followed by some suggestions about the selective context for the first use of these facilities on Yap. Information follows on five basic types of stone trap: arrow traps
V-shaped, lagoon traps
V-shaped, reef-crest traps
piled-rock traps
and rectangular, surround traps. Of these, only the arrow trap and the piled-rock trap have been described previously.
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