Diversity in lithic raw material sources on New Britain, Papua New Guinea

Abstract

The nature of chert exposures in the Passismanua area of West New Britain, Papua New Guinea is reviewed in light of reports of worked seams of chert in five caves. Extraction of chert at one cave, Ale, began within the last 3,000 years, but such exposures have been used from the late Pleistocene onwards. The nature and quality of the exposures would often have placed severe constraints on the production of flaked tools. The chert sources are compared with those of obsidian on the north side of New Britain, highlighting the potential advantages and problems of each. A small group of finely made stemmed chert tools is identified as potentially valuables similar to stemmed obsidian tools of the Willaumez Peninsula obsidian source region. While the chert examples differ in aspects of technology and form, they share with the obsidian forms the concept of bifacially-worked stems and were made during the same period. This is seen as indicating social relationships between the two areas during the middle Holocene comparable to that recently proposed between Manus and New Britain.