Expansion of Austronesianspeaking peoples from the Bismarck Archipelago out into the Pacific commencing c.3300 cal BP represents the last great chapter of human global colonisation. The earliest migrants were bearers of finelymade dentate-stamped Lapita pottery, hitherto found only across Island Melanesia and western Polynesia. We document the first known occurrence of Lapita peoples on the New Guinea mainland. The new Lapita sites date from 2900 to 2500 cal BP and represent a newly-discovered migratory arm of Lapita expansions that moved westwards along the southern New Guinea coast towards Australia. These marine specialists ate shellfish, fish and marine turtles along the Papua New Guinea mainland coast, reflecting subsistence continuities with local pre-Lapita peoples dating back to 4200 cal BP. Lapita artefacts include characteristic ceramics, shell armbands, stone adzes and obsidian tools. Our Lapita discoveries support hypotheses for the migration of pottery-bearing Melanesian marine specialists into Torres Strait of northeast Australia c.2500 cal BP.
J. 2007. Sediment mixing at Nonda Rock: investigations of stratigraphic integrity at an early archaeological site in northern Australia and implications for the human colonisation of the continent.ABSTRACT: Archaeological excavations in sediments dating to between 60 000 and 40 000 years ago are rare in Australia. Yet this is precisely the period in which most archaeologists consider that Aboriginal people arrived on the continent. In the few cases where such early sites have been investigated, questions have invariably been raised as to the reliability of stratigraphic associations between cultural items and the surrounding sediments. This paper describes a method for examining sediment mixing in a stratigraphic sequence using the optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) signals from individual sand-sized grains of quartz. We apply this method to the archaeological site of Nonda Rock (north Queensland), in combination with radiocarbon dating of charcoal fragments, to construct chronologies for human occupation and for the preceding, culturally sterile, deposits. Our age estimates have implications for the timing of first human arrival in Australia.
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