Lithic drill points: an ethno-historic case study from Motupore Island (Papua New Guinea).

Proceedings of the XVIII UISPP World Congress (4-9 June 2018, Paris, France)International audienceMotupore is the name of an island and the archaeological village site located upon it in the Central Province of Papua New Guinea. The occupants of this site have been described as specialist manufacturers of earthenware clay pots. During the late 1800s and early 1900s ethnographers recorded 15 different pot types, two of which were dominant in the assemblage. The pots were transported by voyaging canoes to the Gulf of Papua and primarily exchanged for sago. This exchange network, known as the hiri, began when the site was first occupied about 800 years ago. A recent excavation on Motupore Island in 2016, led by M. Leavesley and T. Beni, found a series of 80 lithic pieces with relatively standardized dimensions. These pieces were collectively categorized as ‘drill points’ based on their relative homogeneity, but this categorization can be misleading. The first aim of the study was to analyze lithic tools from a techno-morphotypological perspective to better characterize the drill points on Motupore Island. Specifically, our objective was to determine whether a standard production process was followed to manufacture homogeneous points or conversely did production processes vary to manufacture hetergeneous drill points with a few dominant types. Based on quantitative and qualitative characteristics, five morphotypes were identified: truncation, shouldered piece, triangle, bore and point. The second aim of the study was to propose functional uses of these ‘drill points’ based on macroscopic observations of retouch on the surface of pieces, and to test hypotheses proposed by ethno-historical sources

Rock Art and (Re)Production of Narratives: A Cassowary Bone Dagger Stencil Perspective from Auwim, East Sepik, Papua New Guinea

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2022.Cassowaries (Casuarius) are one of the largest indigenous animal species of New Guinea. Researchers have long been trying to understand their local socio-cultural significance. Here we present new results from interviews recorded in 2018 on ethnography associated with bone daggers, a material culture ornament and tool carved from the cassowary’s tibiotarsus. We present a ‘storied notion’—a contemporary narrative from oral history of why cassowary is not simply a bird, and briefly describe cassowary bone ornamentation in Auwim, East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea. By exploring the material history of Casuarius through a ‘storied notion’ approach, we reveal that cassowary bone daggers in rock art are narrative ideas of the species from its landscape to ornamentation and through to people’s cosmological beliefs surrounding Casuarius. We argue that the cassowary bone dagger stencil can be seen as part of the life history of this animal.Roxanne Tsang, Sebastien Katuk, Sally K. May, Paul S.C. Taçon, François-Xavier Ricaut, Matthew G. Leavesle

Buang Merabak: Early evidence for human occupation in the Bismarck Archipelago, Papua New Guinea

[Extract] This paper reports new radiocarbon estimates for the age of human occupation of Buang Merabak, an archaeological site in central New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Previously, the oldest radiocarbon date for human occupation in New Ireland was 35,410 ± 430 BP (Leavesley and Allen 1998:80). The radiocarbon determinations reported here, although preliminary, may extend the first evidence of human occupation in New Ireland to beyond 40,000 BP (uncalibrated) and indirectly support the evidence presented by Groube et al. (1986) and Chappell et al. (1994), for the occupation of the Huon Peninsula at a similar antiquity

Agency, affect and archaeologist: transforming place with rock art in Auwim, upper Karawari Arafundi Region, East Sepik, Papua New Guinea

International audienceContemporary narratives and interpretations surrounding rock art production in present-day settings provide important insights into rock art practices in the past and present. These traditions can still be seen today in places such as Africa, South America, Australia and Papua New Guinea (PNG). In PNG’s East Sepik region, rock art stencils are still produced by the Auwim people of the Upper Karawari-Arafundi region. This paper presents a case study from Apuranga rock art site in Auwim village, East Sepik, where Auwim artists created stencils during a period of archaeological research in June 2018. Interviews with the Auwim artists revealed the stencils were made to transform a once-feared rockshelter into a place that the community could use again without fear or trepidation. This paper explores the implications of these events, the mechanisms for the rock art creation, the impact of researcher’s presence, and their broader relevance to studies of rock art in contemporary settings. We argue that contemporary rock art creation in Auwim is embedded in a network of relationships that involve oral traditions, place-making strategies and emotional responses such as overcoming fea

A genomic history of Aboriginal Australia.

The population history of Aboriginal Australians remains largely uncharacterized. Here we generate high-coverage genomes for 83 Aboriginal Australians (speakers of Pama-Nyungan languages) and 25 Papuans from the New Guinea Highlands. We find that Papuan and Aboriginal Australian ancestors diversified 25-40 thousand years ago (kya), suggesting pre-Holocene population structure in the ancient continent of Sahul (Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania). However, all of the studied Aboriginal Australians descend from a single founding population that differentiated ~10-32 kya. We infer a population expansion in northeast Australia during the Holocene epoch (past 10,000 years) associated with limited gene flow from this region to the rest of Australia, consistent with the spread of the Pama-Nyungan languages. We estimate that Aboriginal Australians and Papuans diverged from Eurasians 51-72 kya, following a single out-of-Africa dispersal, and subsequently admixed with archaic populations. Finally, we report evidence of selection in Aboriginal Australians potentially associated with living in the desert