{"title":"Agarabi pottery production in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea","authors":"Kristine Hardy , Chris Ballard , Mathieu Leclerc","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2022.101479","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The only pottery known to have been produced in the New Guinea Highlands is associated with communities speaking Agarabi, a non-Austronesian language in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. This paper provides a comprehensive summary of Agarabi pottery forms and production processes, combining published sources with previously unpublished records, notes, sketches and photographs from ethnoarchaeological fieldwork amongst Agarabi speakers in the Kainantu District in 1987. Agarabi vessels are characterised by their ovoid elongated shape with gently pointed bases and out-curving rims. Decoration, where it is present, occurs on the rims and / or around the neck and consists of incisions or punctate impressions, often from multi-toothed combs. These characteristics clearly distinguish Agarabi ware from pottery produced in communities speaking Austronesian languages in the neighbouring Upper Markham and Middle Ramu valleys. The multi-faceted description of Agarabi pottery production presented here provides a foundation for further enquiry into the cultural processes and historical trajectories that have shaped this unique Highlands ceramic ware.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278416522000873","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The only pottery known to have been produced in the New Guinea Highlands is associated with communities speaking Agarabi, a non-Austronesian language in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. This paper provides a comprehensive summary of Agarabi pottery forms and production processes, combining published sources with previously unpublished records, notes, sketches and photographs from ethnoarchaeological fieldwork amongst Agarabi speakers in the Kainantu District in 1987. Agarabi vessels are characterised by their ovoid elongated shape with gently pointed bases and out-curving rims. Decoration, where it is present, occurs on the rims and / or around the neck and consists of incisions or punctate impressions, often from multi-toothed combs. These characteristics clearly distinguish Agarabi ware from pottery produced in communities speaking Austronesian languages in the neighbouring Upper Markham and Middle Ramu valleys. The multi-faceted description of Agarabi pottery production presented here provides a foundation for further enquiry into the cultural processes and historical trajectories that have shaped this unique Highlands ceramic ware.
期刊介绍:
An innovative, international publication, the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology is devoted to the development of theory and, in a broad sense, methodology for the systematic and rigorous understanding of the organization, operation, and evolution of human societies. The discipline served by the journal is characterized by its goals and approach, not by geographical or temporal bounds. The data utilized or treated range from the earliest archaeological evidence for the emergence of human culture to historically documented societies and the contemporary observations of the ethnographer, ethnoarchaeologist, sociologist, or geographer. These subjects appear in the journal as examples of cultural organization, operation, and evolution, not as specific historical phenomena.