Yap

Island and archipelago of the western Caroline Islands, part of the Federated States of Micronesia, know for large wheel-shaped discs of stone money. The stone is quarried in the Palau Islands and taken to Yap by canoe. Yap was at the head of a chain of trade and tribute in the Carolines, the so-called Yapese empire and in contact with Palau and the Marianas Islands as seen in similar red ware of the 2nd millennium BC. The occurrence of child jar-burial suggests later contact with the Philippines.

An island at the western end of the Caroline chain in Micronesia, famous ethnographically for its large wheel-shaped discs of stone money, quarried in the Palau Islands and taken to Yap by canoe, and also for its position at the head of a chain of trade and tribute extending for 1100 km eastwards through the atolls of the Carolines (the so-called Yapese ‘empire’). The prehistoric record on Yap is related to that in the Palau and Marianas Islands and settlement by makers of Marianas red ware may have taken place in the 2nd millennium bc. The occurrence of child jar-burial suggests later contacts with the Philippines.