Articlegold2020

Emergence of a Neolithic in highland New Guinea by 5000 to 4000 years ago

Ben Shaw · Judith H. Field · Glenn R. Summerhayes · Simon Coxe · Adelle C.F. Coster · Anne Ford +6 more

80 citations0/0 files storedScience Advances

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Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies Archaeology and ancient environmental studies Archaeological and Geological Studies

Abstract

The emergence of agriculture was one of the most notable behavioral transformations in human history, driving innovations in technologies and settlement globally, referred to as the Neolithic. Wetland agriculture originated in the New Guinea highlands during the mid-Holocene (8000 to 4000 years ago), yet it is unclear if there was associated behavioral change. Here, we report the earliest figurative stone carving and formally manufactured pestles in Oceania, dating to 5050 to 4200 years ago. These discoveries, at the highland site of Waim, occur with the earliest planilateral axe-adzes in New Guinea, the first evidence for fibercraft, and interisland obsidian transfer. The combination of symbolic social systems, complex technologies, and highland agricultural intensification supports an independent emergence of a Neolithic ~1000 years before the arrival of Neolithic migrants (Lapita) from Southeast Asia.

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References

2010Human Adaptation and Plant Use in Highland New Guinea 49,000 to 44,000 Years Ago 20172. The Trans New Guinea family 2017Ten Thousand Years of Cultivation at Kuk Swamp in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea 1975Settlement and economy in prehistoric Papua New Guinea: a review of the archeological evidence 2018Neandertal fire-making technology inferred from microwear analysis 1991Highland New Guinea hunter-gatherers : the evidence of Nombe Rockshelter, Simbu, with emphasis on the Pleistocene 2017The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines

Cited by

2022Frontier Lapita interaction with resident Papuan populations set the stage for initial peopling of the Pacific 2020Small game hunting in montane rainforests: Specialised capture and broad spectrum foraging in the Late Pleistocene to Holocene New Guinea Highlands 2020Smallest Late Pleistocene inhabited island in Australasia reveals the impact of post-glacial sea-level rise on human behaviour from 17,000 years ago 2021The Archaeology of Social Transformation in the New Guinea Highlands 2021Axe Quarrying, Production, and Exchange in Australia and New Guinea 2023The invisible plant technology of Prehistoric Southeast Asia: Indirect evidence for basket and rope making at Tabon Cave, Philippines, 39–33,000 years ago

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