Culturing island biomes: marsupial translocation and bone tool production around New Guinea during the Pleistocene–Holocene

Abstract

Humans have shaped island ecosystems for tens of millennia. A crucial part of this process included the anthropogenic translocation of wild animals between islands. Archaeological evidence presented here suggests humans introduced forest wallabies to Island Southeast Asia from Sahul (Pleistocene New Guinea–Australia) before 12,800 years ago. This is the earliest reported anthropogenic translocation west of Sahul, and one of the earliest in the world. Our agent-based modelling indicates anthropogenic and natural processes could account for wallabies in the Raja Ampat Islands, but humans were likely needed to move animals further west into the Maluku Islands. Zooarchaeological analyses from Raja Ampat show wallabies were hunted throughout the Holocene but became locally extirpated in the Mid–Late Holocene. Zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry (ZooMS) indicates macropods (the family of forest wallabies) persisted until at least 4400–4200 years ago, with skeletons being reused for bone point manufacture. The capture, translocation, exchange, hunting, and recycling of marsupials was part of a wider process of ‘culturing’ island biomes centred around New Guinea in the Terminal Pleistocene to Mid Holocene. Recognising that Pleistocene humans partly shaped and extended the ‘native’ distribution of animals in island rainforests has important implications for tropical biogeography, ecology, and conservation.