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

Skelly, Robert; David, Bruno; Petchey, Fiona; Leavesley, Matthew

doi:10.1017/s0003598x00101127

Cited by 27 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…In an expansion of the boundary, recent serendipitous discoveries and predictive modelling of the 3000 cal. BP south Papuan coastline have now extended the Lapita range westwards right up to the Fly River (Skelly et al 2014). David et al (Chapter 3) discuss one of these sites, Moiapu at Caution Bay near Port Moresby, and how it fits into the regional context and sequence, focusing particularly on its place at the end of Lapita.…”

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confidence: 99%

Debating Lapita: Distribution, chronology, society and subsistence

Bedford¹,

Spriggs²,

Burley³

et al. 2019

Debating Lapita: Distribution, Chronology, Society and Subsistence

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Lapita has been a focus for archaeologists for generations. Initially inspired by the scattered reporting in the early twentieth century of highly decorated sherds (Meyer 1909; McKern 1929; Piroutet 1917), its increasing significance in terms of the human settlement of the Pacific began to build in the 1960s. The Lapita culture has been most clearly defined by its distinctive dentatestamped decorated pottery and the design system represented on it and on further incised pots. It is defined earliest in the Bismarck Archipelago to the east of the large island of New Guinea, at some time in the centuries preceding 3000 cal. BP. At around that date the Lapita culture spread out from its Bismarck Archipelago 'homeland' to beyond previously inhabited regions of Near Oceania to establish the first human colonies in the western part of Remote Oceania, the present-day southeast Solomons, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and Wallis and Futuna. At about the same time there was a push to the southwest out from the Bismarcks along the south coast of New Guinea, perhaps even as far as the Torres Straits (McNiven et al. 2006). The broad overlapping themes of this volume, Lapita distribution and chronology, society and subsistence, relate to research questions that have long been debated in relation to Lapita. It is a substantial volume with 23 chapters, reflecting the increasing breadth and focus on different aspects of Lapita that have developed over several decades.

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confidence: 99%

Debating Lapita: Distribution, chronology, society and subsistence

Bedford¹,

Spriggs²,

Burley³

et al. 2019

Debating Lapita: Distribution, Chronology, Society and Subsistence

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show abstract

“…The discovery of Lapita pottery 4.5 km from the current shoreline by Skelly et al . () at Hopo in the Papuan Gulf, some 230 km west from Caution Bay, was in large part a result of an increased understanding of the nature of the prograding coastline in this region – geomorphology again – but the authors also note that the site was “fortuitously located” under a much more recent surface scatter of material.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…) and also more recently in the Papuan Gulf (Skelly et al . ). In both cases some serendipity was involved, augmented to various degrees by an increasingly sophisticated understanding of coastal geomorphology – the latter being something that Bill Dickinson called for throughout his career (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“By all means let us complete the exercise”: the 50‐year search for Lapita on Aneityum, southern Vanuatu and implications for other “gaps” in the Lapita distribution

Bedford

Spriggs

Shing

2016

Archaeology in Oceania

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Archaeological research on the island of Aneityum, the southernmost inhabited island of the Vanuatu archipelago (the former New Hebrides), began in 1963 under the direction of Richard and Mary Shutler. It was soon after this that William Dickinson began analysing pottery sherds from various sites across the archipelago. He ultimately went on to study hundreds of samples, including -most recently -112 from the site of Teouma on Efate Island. Early pottery sites remained elusive in the southern islands for two decades after the Shutlers' pioneering work and on Aneityum for nearly 50 years. Assessments of the island's geomorphology, a key aspect regularly emphasised by Dickinson, coupled with perseverance and some serendipitous test-pitting finally led to the discovery of a Lapita site on Aneityum. Dickinson's petrographic expertise was once again called on some 50 years after research first started on the island, to contribute to initial identification of the site's significance. We examine the difficulty of finding Lapita on Aneityum through a historical lens in order to reflect back on other presumed Lapita "gaps" that remain today, such as in much of the main Solomons' chain and -with one current exceptionin Samoa. Perhaps the gaps in other regions are not as extensive as is often argued. RÉSUMÉ Les recherches archéologiques sur l'île d'Anatom,île peuplée la plus au sud de l'archipel du Vanuatu, ont débuté en 1963 sous la direction de Richard et Mary Shutler. William Dickinson a commencé peu de temps après l'analyse de tessons de poterie provenant de divers siteś etalés sur l'archipel. Ses travaux se sont finalementétendusà l'étude de centaines d'échantillons incluant 112 tessons provenant du site deTeouma situé sur l'île de Efate. Suite aux travaux novateurs des Shutlers, la recherche de sites anciens contenant des vestiges céramiques est demeurée infructueuse pendant plus de vingt ans dans lesîles du sud et près de cinquante ans sur Anatom. L'étude géomorphologique des sols, un aspect régulièrement mis en valeur par Dickinson, combinéeà la persévérance età des sondages fortuits ont finalement menéà la découverte d'un site Lapita sur Anatom. L'expertise pétrographique de Dickinson fut dès lorsà nouveau requise quelques cinquante ans après le début des recherches sur cetteîle afin de déterminer l'importance de ce site. La difficulté de trouver un site Lapita sur Anatom est ici examinée en relation avec l'historique des travaux afin de reconsidérer les présumées « régions vides » de sites Lapita comme l'est encore aujourd'hui la grande majorité de la chaîne principale desîles Salomons et,à une exception près, Samoa. Il pourraitêtre suggéré que ces « vides » ne sont pas aussiétendus que ce qu'il est souvent affirmé.

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“…The southern PNG lowlands were also the setting for more recent Austronesian expansions and colonisation processes into Melanesia, notably associated with Lapita peoples of the past c. 3,300 years (for example, McNiven et al 2011McNiven et al , 2012. Holocene savanna landscapes are playing a large part in archaeological discussions ranging from interpretations of local patterns and trends (McNiven et al 2012;Skelly et al 2014) to explorations of the southern PNG coast as a socially networked space (David et al 2016a;digim'Rina et al 2016). It is also increasingly recognised that the low altitude land in PNG is diminishing and/or degrading under modern population pressures, from urbanization, industrial development and agricultural expansion (Samanta and Pal 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Holocene record of savanna vegetation dynamics in southern lowland Papua New Guinea

Rowe

David

Mialanes

et al. 2019

Veget Hist Archaeobot

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The southern lowlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG) are biogeographically distinct. Vast tracts of savanna vegetation occur there and yet most palaeoecological studies have focused on highlands and/or forest environments. Greater focus on long-term lowland environments provides a rare opportunity to understand and promote the significance of local and regional savannas, ultimately allowing non-forested and forested ecosystem dynamics to be compared. This paper examines palaeoecological and archaeological data from a lowland open savanna site situated on the south-central PNG coastline. The methods used incorporate pollen and micro-charcoal analyses, artefact recovery and sediment descriptions. We conclude with an environmental model of sedimentation and vegetation change for the past c. 5,800 years, revealing a mid to late Holocene savanna interchange between herbaceous and woody plant growth, with fluctuating fire occurrence increasing toward the present day. Increased silt deposition and modified regional hydrology are also recorded. Environmental changes correspond in timing with the start of permanent settlements and human use of fire. In particular, landscape burning for hunting and gardens for agriculture have helped create the open ecosystem still evident today.

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

Cited by 27 publications

References 13 publications

Debating Lapita: Distribution, chronology, society and subsistence

Debating Lapita: Distribution, chronology, society and subsistence

“By all means let us complete the exercise”: the 50‐year search for Lapita on Aneityum, southern Vanuatu and implications for other “gaps” in the Lapita distribution

A Holocene record of savanna vegetation dynamics in southern lowland Papua New Guinea

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