New Direction In Human Colonisation of The Pacific: Lapita Settlement of South Coast New Guinea

Ian J. McNiven · Bruno David · Thomas Richards · Ken P. Aplin · Brit Asmussen · Jérôme Mialanes +3 more

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Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies Archaeology and ancient environmental studies Maritime and Coastal Archaeology

Abstract

Expansion of Austronesianspeaking peoples from the Bismarck Archipelago out into the Pacific commencing c.3300 cal BP represents the last great chapter of human global colonisation. Bismarck Indonesia Archipelago Papua New Guinea Torres Strait Caution Bay The earliest migrants were bearers of finelymade dentate-stamped Lapita pottery, hitherto found only across Island Melanesia and western Polynesia. We document the first known occurrence of Lapita peoples on the New Guinea mainland. The new Lapita sites date from 2900 to 2500 cal BP and represent a newly-discovered migratory arm of Lapita expansions that moved westwards along the southern New Guinea coast towards Australia. These marine specialists ate shellfish, fish and marine turtles along the Papua New Guinea mainland coast, reflecting subsistence continuities with local pre-Lapita peoples dating back to 4200 cal BP. Lapita artefacts include characteristic ceramics, shell armbands, stone adzes and obsidian tools. Our Lapita discoveries support hypotheses for the migration of pottery-bearing Melanesian marine specialists into Torres Strait of northeast Australia c.2500 cal BP.

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References

1998The island Melanesians 1999Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 1975Modern Quaternary Research in Southeast Asia.2006The Teouma Lapita site and the early human settlement of the Pacific Islands 2000Late Holocene maritime societies in the Torres Strait Islands, northern Australia: Cultural arrival or cultural emergence?

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2012Ritualized Middening Practices 2022Frontier Lapita interaction with resident Papuan populations set the stage for initial peopling of the Pacific 2011Lapita Colonization across the Near/Remote Oceania Boundary 2013An Archaeological Review of Western New Guinea 2011Lapita sites in the Central Province of mainland Papua New Guinea 2020Smallest Late Pleistocene inhabited island in Australasia reveals the impact of post-glacial sea-level rise on human behaviour from 17,000 years ago 2022Global Patterns in Island Colonization during the Holocene 2013Deconstructing the Lapita Cultural Complex in the Bismarck Archipelago

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