From Pleistocene to Present: obsidian sources in west New Britain, Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Artefacts made of obsidian derived from outcrops in the Talasea area of West New Britain, Papua New Guinea, have been found on archaeological sites dating from the late Pleistocene up to the present day and extending over about 8,000 km from west to east of Talasea. The research described here examines the nature of past obsidian exploitation at the Talasea sources and forms part of a larger project on the history of human settlement and resource use in West New Britain. Two aspects of this work are reported here: field studies of the source exposures around Talasea, and the fine-grained discrimination between the sources through PIXE-PIGME ion beam analyses of their chemical compositions.