Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T19:40:19.979Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tracking ancient beach-lines inland: 2600-year-old dentate-stamped ceramics at Hopo, Vailala River region, Papua New Guinea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 April 2015

Robert Skelly ,
Bruno David ,
Fiona Petchey  and
Matthew Leavesley
Robert Skelly
Affiliation:
Monash Indigenous Centre, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia (Email: robert.skelly@monash.edu; bruno.david@monash.edu)
Bruno David
Affiliation:
Monash Indigenous Centre, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia (Email: robert.skelly@monash.edu; bruno.david@monash.edu)
Fiona Petchey
Affiliation:
Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, University of Waikato, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand (Email: fpetchey@waikato.ac.nz)
Matthew Leavesley
Affiliation:
School of Arts and Social Sciences, James Cook University, Cairns, QLD 4870, Australia (Email: matthew.leavesley@jcu.edu.au)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Lapita expansion took Austronesian seafaring peoples with distinctive pottery eastward from the Bismarck Archipelago to western Polynesia during the late second millennium BC, marking the first stage in the settlement of Oceania. Here it is shown that a parallel process also carried Lapita pottery and people many hundreds of kilometres westward along the southern shore of Papua New Guinea. The key site is Hopo, now 4.5km inland owing to the progradation of coastal sand dunes, but originally on the sea edge. Pottery and radiocarbon dates indicate Lapita settlement in this location c. 600 BC, and suggest that the long-distance maritime networks linking the entire southern coast of Papua New Guinea in historical times may trace their origin to this period.

Keywords

Papua New GuineaVailala RiverHopoLapitaseafaringmaritime colonisationcoastal change
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 88 , Issue 340 , 01 June 2014 , pp. 470 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, J. 2010. Revisiting Papuan ceramic sequence changes: another look at old data. The Artefact 33: 4–15.Google Scholar
Anson, D. 1999. Compositional analysis of dentate-stamped Lapita and nail-incised and applied relief pottery from Watom Island, in Galipaud, J.C. & Lilley, I. (ed.) The Pacific from 5000-2000 BP: colonisation and transformations: 85–103. Noumea: IRD.Google Scholar
Barham, A.J. 2000. Late Holocene maritime societies in the Torres Strait Islands, northern Australia: cultural arrival or cultural emergence?, in O'Connor, S. & Veth, P. (ed.) East of Wallace's Line: studies of past and present maritime cultures of the Indo-Pacific region: 223–314. Rotterdam: A.A. Balkema.Google Scholar
BEDFORD, S. 1999. Lapita and post-Lapita ceramic sequences from Erromango, southern Vanuatu, in Galipaud, J.C. & Lilley, I. (ed.) The Pacific from 5000-2000 BP: colonisation and transformations: 128–37. Noumea: IRD.Google Scholar
Bellwood, P. 1996. Hierarchy, founder ideology and Austronesian expansion, in Fox, J.J. & Sather, C. (ed.) Origins, ancestry and alliance: explorations in Austronesian ethnography: 19–42. Canberra: ANU E-Press.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2009. Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 51: 337–60.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2013. OxCal Program v.4.2. Oxford: Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Carson, M.T., Hung, H.-C., G. Summerhayes & Bellwood, P.. 2013. The pottery trail from Southeast Asia to Remote Oceania. The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 8: 17–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15564894.2012.726941 Google Scholar
David, B., Araho, N., Barker, B., A. Kuaso & Moffat, I.. 2009. Keveoki 1: exploring the hiri ceramics trade at a short-lived village site near the Vailala River, Papua New Guinea. Australian Archaeology 68: 11–23.Google Scholar
David, B., McNiven, I.J., Richards, T., Connaughton, S.P., Leavesley, M., B. Barker & Rowe, C.. 2011. Lapita sites in the Central Province of mainland Papua New Guinea. World Archaeology 43: 580–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2011.624720 Google Scholar
Frankel, D. & Vanderwal, R.. 1985. Prehistoric research in Papua New Guinea. Antiquity 59: 113–15.Google Scholar
Frankel, D., Thompson, K. & Vanderwal, R.. 1994. Kerema and Kinomere, in Frankel, D. & Rhoads, J.W. (ed.) Archaeology of a coastal exchange system: sites and ceramics of the Papuan Gulf (Research Papers in Archaeology and Natural History 25): 1–49. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Harlow, G.E., Summerhayes, G.R., Davies, H.L. & Matisoo-Smith, E.. 2012. A jade gouge from Emirau Island, Papua New Guinea (Early Lapita context, 3300 BP): a unique jadeitite. European Journal of Mineralogy 24: 391–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1127/0935-1221/2012/0024-2175 Google Scholar
Irwin, G.R. 2012. Some comments and questions about newly discovered Lapita sites at Caution Bay, near Port Moresby. Australian Archaeology 75: 8–24.Google Scholar
Kirch, P.V. 1997. The Lapita peoples: ancestors of the Oceanic world. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
McNiven, I.J., Dickinson, W.R., David, B., Weisler, M.I., F. Von Gnielinski, M. Carter & Zoppi, U.. 2006. Mask Cave: red-slipped pottery and the Australian-Papuan settlement of Zenadh Kes (Torres Strait). Archaeology in Oceania 41: 49–81.Google Scholar
McNiven, I.J., David, B., Richards, T., Aplin, K., Asmussen, B., Mialanes, J., Leavesley, M., Faulkner, P. & Ulm, S.. 2011. New direction in human colonisation of the Pacific: Lapita settlement of south coast New Guinea. Australian Archaeology 72: 1–6.Google Scholar
McNiven, I.J., David, B., Richards, T., Rowe, C., Leavesley, M., Mialanes, J., Connaughton, S.P., Barker, B., Aplin, K., Asmussen, B., Faulkner, P. & Ulm, S.. 2012. Lapita on the south coast of Papua New Guinea: challenging new horizons in Pacific archaeology. Australian Archaeology 75: 16–22.Google Scholar
Pawley, A.K. 1982. Rubbish-man commoner, big-man chief?, in Siikala, J. (ed.) Oceanic studies: essays in honour of Aarne A. Koskinen: 33–52. Helsinki: Finnish Anthropological Society.Google Scholar
Reimer, P.J., Baillie, M.G.L., Bard, E., Bayliss, A., Beck, J.W., Blackwell, P.G, Ramsey, C. Bronk, Buck, C.E., Burr, G.S., Edwards, R.L., Friedrich, M., Grootes, P.M., Guilderson, T.P., Hajdas, I., Heaton, T.J., Hogg, A.G., Hughen, K.A., Kaiser, K.F., Kromer, B., McCormac, F.G., Manning, S.W., Reimer, R.W., Richards, D.A., Southon, J.R., Talamo, S., Turney, C.S.M., Plicht, J. Van Der & Weyhenmeyer, C.E.. 2009. IntCal09 and Marine09 radiocarbon age calibration curves, 0-50,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon 51: 1111–50.Google Scholar
Rhoads, J.W. 1982. Prehistoric Papuan exchange systems: the hiri and its antecedents, in Dutton, T.E. (ed.) The hiri in history: further aspects of long distance Motu trade in central Papua (Pacific Research Monograph 8): 131–51. Canberra: Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Rhoads, J.W. 1994. The Popo site, in Frankel, D. & Rhoads, J.W. (ed.) Archaeology of a coastal exchange system: sites and ceramics of the Papuan Gulf (Research Papers in Archaeology and Natural History 25): 53–69. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Ruxton, B.P. 1969. Regional description of the Kerema-Vailala area, in Ruxton, B.P., Bleeker, P., Leach, B.J., McAlpine, J.R., Paijmans, K. & Pullen, R., Lands of the Kerema-Vailala Area, Territory of Papua and New Guinea (Land Research Series 23): 9–16. Melbourne: CSIRO.Google Scholar
Ruxton, B.P., Bleeker, P., Leach, B.J., McAlpine, J.R., Paijmans, K. & Pullen, R.. 1969. Lands of the Kerema-Vailala Area, Territory of Papua and New Guinea (Land Research Series 23). Melbourne: CSIRO.Google Scholar
Sheppard, P.J. 2011. Lapita colonization across the Near/Remote Oceania boundary. Current Anthropology 52: 799-840. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/662201 Skelly, R. 2014. From Lapita to the hiri: archaeology of the Kouri lowlands, Gulf of Papua, Papua New Guinea. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Monash University.Google Scholar
Skelly, R., David, B., Barker, B., Kuaso, A. & Araho, N.. 2010. Migration sites of the Miaro clan (Vailala River region, Papua New Guinea): tracking Kouri settlement movements through oral tradition sites on ancient landscapes. The Artefact 33: 16–29.Google Scholar
Specht, J. 2012. Caution Bay and Lapita pottery: cautionary comments. Australian Archaeology 75: 3–7.Google Scholar
Spriggs, M. 2012. Comment. Australian Archaeology 75: 15–16.Google Scholar
Summerhayes, G.R. & Allen, J.. 2007. Lapita writ small? Revisiting the Austronesian colonization of the Papuan south coast, in Bedford, S. & Connaughton, S.I (ed.) Oceanic explorations: Lapita and western Pacific settlement (Terra Australis 26): 97–122. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
Summerhayes, G.R., Matisoo-Smith, E., Mandui, H., Allen, J., Specht, J., Hogg, N. & Mcpherson, S.. 2010. Tamuarawai (EQS): an early Lapita site on Emirau, New Ireland, PNG. Journal of Pacific Archaeology 1: 62–75.Google Scholar
Vanderwal, R.L. 1978. Exchange in prehistoric coastal Papua. Mankind 11: 416–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1835-9310.1978.tb00670.x Google Scholar
Wahome, E. 1997. Continuity and change in Lapita and post-Lapita ceramics: a review of evidence from the Admiralty Islands and New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Archaeology in Oceania 32: 118–23.Google Scholar
White, J.P. & Harris, M.. 1997. Early Lapita period obsidian in the Bismarck Archipelago. Archaeology in Oceania 32: 97–107.Google Scholar
Williams, F.E. 1969. Drama of Orokolo: the social and ceremonial life of the Elema. Oxford:Oxford University Press.Google Scholar