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Latte Stones of Guam and the Mariana Islands

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Latte Stones of Guam and the Mariana Islands

A latte stone, or simply latte, is the term for a pillar (Chamorro language: haligi) capped by a hemispherical stone capital (tasa) with the flat side facing up. Probably used as building supports by the ancient Chamorro people, they are found throughout most of the Mariana Islands. In modern times, the latte stone is seen as a sign of Chamorro identity and is used in many different contexts.

The history of the pre-contact Marianas is usually divided into three periods: Pre-Latte, Transitional Pre-Latte, and Latte. Latte stones began to be used in about 800 A.D. and became increasingly more common until the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 and Spanish colonization, when they fell rapidly out of use and were entirely abandoned by about 1700. Latte stones have been found on Guam and the southern islands in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, including Rota, Tinian, Aguiguan, and Saipan, as well as several small northern islands, such as Pagan.

The largest standing latte is the House of Taga in Tinian, (Shown in the photo) where capstones measure between 2.7 – 2.48 meters in diameter and shafts are 3.87 – 4.23 meters long. The Chamorros never completed what would have been the largest latte in the Marianas. Those latte elements remain in the quarry at the As Nieves in Rota. The northern most latte sets or structures are located on the island of Pagan.

Undisturbed stones are found usually arranged in parallel pairs of between eight and fourteen lattes framing a rectangular space. The more pairs in the structure, the taller the latte stones. One twenty latte arrangement was found in the current location of the military Ordnance Annex on southern Guam. While none of the early European visitors to the islands appear to have drawn pictures of latte stones in use, several accounts from the 16th and 17th centuries state that houses were erected on the stones, with one eyewitness specifying that the structures on lattes were used to shelter proas and served as community meeting places. However, the lack of definitive, consistent evidence means that all theories are disputed. Some archaeologists believe that only high status Chamorros lived in structures built on latte stones, while others have put forward the theory that all Chamorros in the Latte Period lived in latte structures, and that the height and number of the stones in the structure indicated social status.