Oceanic Prehistory

This paper emphasises sub-regional variation in the timing and nature of subsistence changes in the New Guinea Highlands at the Pleistocene–Holocene transition. An analysis of the Kiowa lithic assemblage was used to examine the interplay between tool technology, mobility levels, and subsistence strategies by investigating changes in the procurement, manufacture, and use of different raw stone materials in an overall lithic technology. Throughout Kiowa’s occupation local stone was used extensively, and over time people increased their knowledge of the local lithic landscape, using more diverse local raw materials. Since the terminal Pleistocene, people carried reliable polished axes for a variety of activities and made expedient use of locally abundant river pebbles, while smaller nodules were located and carried as mobile toolkits to facilitate longer distance hunting and collecting excursions. In the mid Holocene exotic raw materials were also traded from more distant zones. The abandonment of Kiowa in the late Holocene shows that hunting became less economically important as cultivation developed in the area. Technological changes, in combination with changes in faunal remains are suggestive of increasing activ- ity at Kiowa through the Holocene as the site became specialised for bat hunting, perhaps driven by restricted land use and reduced mobility, reciprocally affected by increasing populations and the inten- sification of plant food production in the Highlands generally. Despite this, evidence for changes to hor- ticulture around Kiowa itself, in the Chimbu area, is limited to the mid-late Holocene, indicating that the early development of agriculture in the Wahgi may have been relatively localised, and did not necessarily displace existing subsistence strategies elsewhere in the Highlands.

Northeast New Guinea will be an important area for future archaeological research, in modelling both Pleistocene and Late Holocene migrations into the Pacific Islands. To make some initial steps towards redressing a relative absence of archaeological fieldwork in the region, we undertook ground survey around Wapain in inland Madang, locating a number of promising sites. Three caves and two rockshelters have the potential to yield deep time sequences, which could inform our understanding of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene occupation, and the technological and subsistence behaviours underpinning these occupations. Given that many of the offshore islands around Madang were not uplifted until the recent past, and because the sea-level highstand in the past was several metres higher than today, such caves could also be within the purview of Mid-Late Holocene palaeoshorelines and coastal populations. This is especially the case given the close proximity to the Gogol River, which ethnographically acted as a conduit facilitating movements into the interior. Targeting sequences around 4000-3000 years old will be essential to untangling the nature of Austronesian- speaking migrations around northeast New Guinea and the possible interactions and integrations between these groups and extant mainland populations.

One of the greatest feats of human migration in history was the colonisation of the vast Pacific Ocean by Polynesian peoples. They achieved it thanks to their sophisticated knowledge of positional astronomy and celestial navigation. The Disney film Moana has drawn attention to these accomplishments and helped inform a new generation about the complexity of Indigenous astronomy.