Trade and culture history across the Vitiaz Strait, Papua New Guinea: the emerging post-Lapita coastal sequence. In A Pacific Odyssey: Archaeology and Anthropology in the Western Pacific. Papers in Honour of Jim Specht

Abstract

This paper, focusing principally on post-Lapita times, outlines the course and outcomes of work undertaken over the last two decades in the West New Britain-Vitiaz Strait-north New Guinea coastal region. It presents two principal arguments. The first is that major periods of movement and abandonment documented in the archaeological sequences of this region from about 3,500 years ago coincide with the record of volcanism in the Talasea-Cape Hoskins area. The second is that the post- Lapita sequences of this region differ significantly from the post-Lapita sequences emerging in the island arc reaching from Manus via New Ireland to southern and eastern island Melanesia, which show continuous occupation and pottery production.