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

The Lapita expansion took Austronesian seafaring peoples with distinctive pottery eastward from the Bismarck Archipelago to western Polynesia during the late second millennium BC, marking the first stage in the settlement of Oceania. Here it is shown that a parallel process also carried Lapita pottery and people many hundreds of kilometres westward along the southern shore of Papua New Guinea. The key site is Hopo, now 4.5km inland owing to the progradation of coastal sand dunes, but originally on the sea edge. Pottery and radiocarbon dates indicate Lapita settlement in this location c.600 BC, and suggest that the long-distance maritime networks linking the entire southern coast of Papua New Guinea in historical times may trace their origin to this period

Temporal tracking of mineralization and transcriptional developments of shell formation during the early life history of pearl oyster Pinctada maxima

Molluscan larval ontogeny is a highly conserved process comprising three principal developmental stages. A characteristic unique to each of these stages is shell design, termed prodissoconch I, prodissoconch II and dissoconch. These shells vary in morphology, mineralogy and microstructure. The discrete temporal transitions in shell biomineralization between these larval stages are utilized in this study to investigate transcriptional involvement in several distinct biomineralization events. Scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction analysis of P. maxima larvae and juveniles collected throughout post-embryonic ontogenesis, document the mineralogy and microstructure of each shelled stage as well as establishing a timeline for transitions in biomineralization. P. maxima larval samples most representative of these biomineralization distinctions and transitions were analyzed for differential gene expression on the microarray platform PmaxArray 1.0. A number of transcripts are reported as differentially expressed in correlation to the mineralization events of P. maxima larval ontogeny. Some of those isolated are known shell matrix genes while others are novel; these are discussed in relation to potential shell formation roles. This interdisciplinary investigation has linked the shell developments of P. maxima larval ontogeny with corresponding gene expression profiles, furthering the elucidation of shell biomineralization

Electrical Enviroments to Stimulate Bone Cell Development

Oral Presentation - no full written paper: The aim of this project was to evaluate the effects of mechanical strain and indirect electrical stimulation upon the development of bone forming osteoblast cells and any possible synergistic effects of the two stimulants. This aim was achieved by using a novel device, designed and developed with the capability of creating a cell substrate surface strain along with an exogenous electrical stimulant individually or at the same time. Proliferation and differentiation was determined as a measure of cellular development. The indirect electrical stimulation was achieved through the use of pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) stimulation while the mechanical strain was produced from the dynamic stretching of a deformable cell substrate. The PEMF signal mimicked a clinically available bone growth stimulator signal. Results showed reduced proliferation and increased differentiation (alkaline phosphatase activity) with SaOS-2 osteoblast-like cell cultures, which were exposed to indirect electrical stimulation. MG-63 osteoblast-like cell cultures also showed reduced proliferation, however they did not show an increase in their differentiation with PEMF exposure. Mechanical stimulation alone did not have a significant effect over either proliferation or differentiation, while a dual mechanical and electrical stimulation resulted in cellular differentiation significantly increasing. It is possible a synergistic interaction between the two stimulants is occurring on a biological level

Tanamu 1: Conclusions and future directions

Tanamu 1 presents a cross-section of some of the major time periods represented in the Caution Bay archaeological landscape, and as such provides a useful starting point for the detailed publication of the results of excavations by which to eventually bridge the space between site-specific and landscape-scale patterns and trends. Across three broad phases of occupation, the site provides a window onto the extent and shape of pre-ceramic occupation in the c. 1700 years leading up to the emergence of the Lapita cultural complex in the Bismarck Archipelago c. 3300 cal BP (e.g., Denham et al. 2012), the nature of the terminal Lapita period which ends at 2600–2550 cal BP at Caution Bay (David et al. 2019), and the past 2750 years leading into the ethnographic present. In this volume we have presented detailed data and analyses of the ceramics, stone and shell artefacts, and vertebrate and invertebrate animal remains, and all have yielded their own particular insights. While conclusions about the long-range cultural history of both Tanamu 1 and Caution Bay can be drawn from the data presented here, we also see this as an opportunity to isolate and frame research issues to be pursued in subsequent volumes of the Caution Bay archaeological project

Trees to the sky : prehistoric hunting in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea

This dissertation investigates the nature of prehistoric hunting strategies in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. New Ireland contains the earliest radiocarbon determinations for human occupation and therefore provides an opportunity to investigate colonisation. It also has a depauperate fauna compared to New Guinea and therefore provides an opportunity to investigate subsequent human adaptations. Hunting strategies are investigated through an analysis of the Buang Merabak faunal assemblage. The Buang Merabak assemblage contains prehistoric food refuse including shell and bone midden material and stone artefacts. The results of the faunal analysis are interpreted to investigate issues of resource use, land use and mobility. Resource use is reflected through prey selectivity and provides the opportunity to investigate the nature of hunting specialisation as a mechanism of adaptation. Prey taxa have discrete ecological requirements that are the parameters of their spatial distribution across the island. Notions of human land use are reflected through the spatial distribution of the prey taxa and are interpreted as a reflection of both on site and off site activities. In order to exploit each particular taxon the hunter must interact with the prey within the prey's environment. Therefore within the hunting context, human land use is reflected by the prey they capture and bring back to the site. Mobility is reflected through resource use and land use. The spatial distribution of the prey taxa reflects the distance the hunter must cover in order to capture the prey and return to the site. In this context, mobility is notionally a relative scale that rates the degree of movement required to exploit the resources reflected in the assemblage. The results are brought together to suggest a New Ireland specific model of behaviour that can be tested against further research. This dissertation argues that terrestrial faunas such as Dobsonia sp. bats and the Phalanger orienta/is were an important aspect of the Late-Pleistocene subsistence economy in New Ireland

The Archaeology of Tanamu 1: A Pre-Lapita to Post-Lapita Site from Caution Bay, South Coast of Mainland Papua New Guinea

[Extract] The discovery in 2010 of stratified Lapita assemblages at Caution Bay near Port Moresby, south coast of mainland Papua New Guinea (PNG) (David et al. 2011; McNiven et al. 2011), brought to the fore a series of important questions (Richards et al. 2016), many of which also apply to other parts of Island Melanesia where Lapita sites have been known for many decades. Unlike other parts of Melanesia, however, at Caution Bay some of the Lapita sites also have pre-Lapita horizons. A number are culturally very rich. At Caution Bay, where the oldest confirmed Lapita finds date to no earlier than c. 2900 cal BP (McNiven et al. 2012a), the major questions do not concern the earliest expressions of Lapita around 3300–3400 cal BP. Rather, here we are concerned more with identifying how assemblages associated with the Lapita cultural complex arrived and transformed along the south coast, after a presence in coastal and island regions to the northeast over the previous 400 years. These concerns contain both spatial and temporal elements: how and when, as a prelude to why, particular cultural traits continued and changed across Caution Bay. Tanamu 1 is the first of 122 archaeological sites excavated in Caution Bay upon which we will report. As a site, it represents the ideal entry point, as being a coastal site which contains pre-Lapita, Lapita and post-Lapita horizons it encapsulates many of the signatures, trends and transformations seen across the >5000 year Caution Bay sequence at large. Of special note in the wider context of Lapita archaeology, the presence of rich pre-Lapita horizons is what makes Caution Bay so important both in and of itself and for the Lapita story

Emerging out of Lapita at Caution Bay

[Extract] The discovery in 2010 of stratified Lapita assemblages at Caution Bay near Port Moresby, south coast of mainland Papua New Guinea (PNG) (David et al. 2011; McNiven et al. 2011), brought to the fore a series of important questions (Richards et al. 2016), many of which also apply to other parts of Island Melanesia where Lapita sites have been known for many decades. Unlike other parts of Melanesia, however, at Caution Bay some of the Lapita sites also have pre-Lapita horizons. A number are culturally very rich. At Caution Bay, where the oldest confirmed Lapita finds date to no earlier than c. 2900 cal BP (McNiven et al. 2012a), the major questions do not concern the earliest expressions of Lapita around 3300–3400 cal BP. Rather, here we are concerned more with identifying how assemblages associated with the Lapita cultural complex arrived and transformed along the south coast, after a presence in coastal and island regions to the northeast over the previous 400 years. These concerns contain both spatial and temporal elements: how and when, as a prelude to why, particular cultural traits continued and changed across Caution Bay. Tanamu 1 is the first of 122 archaeological sites excavated in Caution Bay upon which we will report. As a site, it represents the ideal entry point, as being a coastal site which contains pre-Lapita, Lapita and post-Lapita horizons it encapsulates many of the signatures, trends and transformations seen across the >5000 year Caution Bay sequence at large. Of special note in the wider context of Lapita archaeology, the presence of rich pre-Lapita horizons is what makes Caution Bay so important both in and of itself and for the Lapita story