Ancient shells and pottery reveal the vast 3,200-years-old trade routes of Oceania’s Indigenous peoples

New research carried out in Walufeni Cave, an important archaeological site in Papua New Guinea, reveal new evidence of long-distance interactions between the Aboriginal companies of Oceania, 3200 years ago.

Our new study, published in the journal Australian archeologyis the first archaeological research undertaken on the Grand Plateau Papu. The results continue to undermine the historic Eurocentric idea that the first indigenous companies in this region were static and immutable.

Instead, we find other proofs of what Monash Professor of Indigenous Archeology Ian J. McNiven calls the sphere of cultural interaction of the Coral Sea: a dynamic exchange of trade, ideas and movements on a vast region encompassing New Guinea, the Strait of Torres and the North East of Australia.

Monitoring of the movement through Sahul

The objective of the Great Papouan Plateau Project was to determine if the tray was perhaps an oriental path for the movement of the first people in northeast Australia, at a time when New Guinea and Australia were joined in the continent of Sahul.

The two countries as we know them separated about 8,000 years ago due to the rise in the sea after the last glacial period.

Our research in the Walufeni cave, located near Mont Bosavi in ​​the Highlands province in southern New Guinea, identified an occupation of more than 10,000 years. We have also found a unique and not yet undated rocky art style.

Our analysis of caves deposits reveal significant changes in the way the site was used from just over 3,000 years ago. This includes changes at the frequency of occupation, the use of plants and animals, as well as the sudden appearance of coastal sea shells.

More specifically, we found evidence of 3,200 years for the transport of sea shells 200 km inside the land, which was previously recorded as coming from the southern coast of the Gulf of Papua, and as far as the Strait of Torres.

This suggests that long -distance maritime trade and interaction networks between companies in the south of New Guinea, the Strait of Torres and northern Australia, spread far inside – and much further than that before.

The meaning of sea shells

Archaeologists and ethnographers have largely documented the use of culturally modified sea shells as important commercial and prestige in New Guinea.

These shells have been used as markers of status and prestige, for ritual purposes, as money and wealth, as tools, and to facilitate long -distance social ties between groups.

Despite the coastal availability of a wide variety of crustaceans, only a relatively small selection is recorded as commonly used in New Guinea.

The most important of them are the dog benches (Nassaridae), the shells of checks (Cypraeidae), the cone shells (Conidae), the ball shell (volutidae) and the pearl / Kina shell (Pteriidae). Many of them are significant for ritual and symbolic functions through Indo-Pacific and, in fact, on a global scale.

The dog scholarships were the predominant species that we found in the Walufeni cave, as well as olive shells and mouth shells. These come from very small “sea snails” or gastropods.

All the shells we found had been culturally modified, for example to allow seam on clothes or spin on ropes.

Gastropods’ shells continue to be used by today’s tray companies. They can be sewn on elaborate ceremonial costumes, or offered in long ropes as a commercial art, or as a nuptial dowry.

Pottery and oral tradition

Other evidence of long distance travel between the southern coast of La Papua New Guinea and the Strait of Torres and northern Australia is in the form of pottery.

The researchers found Lapita pottery on two archaeological sites on the southern coast of New Guinea (Actation Bay and Hopo). These are dated 2,900 and 2,600 years, respectively.

Lapita Pottery is a distinctive characteristic of Austronesian long distance trips with origins in modern Taiwan and the Philippines. Lapita Peoples bought the first pottery in New Guinea about 3,300 years ago, providing the model for the production of subsequent localized pottery.

In a separate discovery, 2,950 -year -old indigenous pottery was reported to Jiigurru (Island de Lizard), off the coast of the Cape York peninsula. Although this pottery is not stylistically Lapita, technology was used to do it.

Similar pottery dating from 2,600 years have been reported on the Eastern Murray islands of the Strait of Torres and in the Mask cave on the island of Poullu, in the west of the Strait of Torres. The analysis of the pottery of the island of Murray indicates that the clay is derived from the south of Papua-Nouvelle-Guinée.

These studies suggest that the knowledge of the peoples of Lapita on how to spread pottery to the Strait of Torres and in northern Australia via the interaction sphere.

In addition, the cultural hero Sido / Souw, which is present in the oral tradition on the Grand Plateau Papu, is also present in the oral tradition of the Strait of Torres and South New Guinea. This demonstrates socio -cultural ties in a large area.

Our research is based on the continuous reassessment of the capacities of indigenous companies, which were often characterized by the first anthropologists as static and immutable.

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