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

Skelly, Robert, David, Bruno, Petchey, Fiona, and Leavesley, Matthew (2014) Tracking ancient beach-lines inland: 2600-year-old dentate-stamped ceramics at Hopo, Vailala River region, Papua New Guinea. Antiquity, 88 (340). pp. 470-487.

[img] PDF (Published Version) - Published Version
Restricted to Repository staff only

View at Publisher Website: http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/088/ant088047...
 
22
1


Abstract

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.

Item ID: 33470
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1745-1744
Keywords: Papua New Guinea, Vailala River,Hopo, Lapita, seafaring, maritime colonisation, coastal change
Funders: Monash University, Australian Research Council (ARC)
Projects and Grants: ARC Discovery grants, ARC QEII Fellowship DP0877782, ARC DORA Fellowship DP130102514
Date Deposited: 03 Jun 2014 01:41
FoR Codes: 21 HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY > 2101 Archaeology > 210106 Archaeology of New Guinea and Pacific Islands (excl New Zealand) @ 100%
SEO Codes: 95 CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING > 9505 Understanding Past Societies > 950599 Understanding Past Societies not elsewhere classified @ 100%
Downloads: Total: 1
More Statistics

Actions (Repository Staff Only)

Item Control Page Item Control Page