Widely held assumptions about static societies during the early-middle Holocene (c. 10,000-3300 BP) in the Willaumez Peninsula, Papua New Guinea are challenged by a hypothetical reconstruction of social negotiations that we propose were embedded within the manufacture of large obsidian stemmed tools that circulated as cultural valuables. Made by skilled knappers, these artefacts were manufactured in stages (quarrying, preform production, shaping, hafting, and re-hafting) often segregated in discrete and possibly restricted locations. The successful completion of a large obsidian stemmed tool may have required effective management to negotiate multiple social networks, thereby enhancing the status of those who directed the process. Social connections forged and re-inforced to support the production process may also have been enhanced by ritual practices. Through the social links created and strengthened by the process of its crafting and the subsequent ceremonies and exchanges in which it circulated, a stemmed tool contributed to a vibrant social life that persisted over several millennia.
Geochemical studies have shown that between ca 6000 and 3400 cal. BP, distinctive stemmed tools were produced at obsidian sources on New Britain and transported widely throughout the island and the Archipelago, implying extensive social networks linking communities across the region. Technological studies at the sources on Willaumez Peninsula of New Britain have suggested specialisation in the production of the two major types of stemmed tools, with implications for the nature of society at that time.The present study extends this previous work through morphological and use-wear analyses of the stems of 148 obsidian Type 1 tools. It proposes that a group of skilled artisans worked together to systematically produce standardised obsidian blades, particularly with regards their stems that were designed to be hafted. It further argues that these artisans were organised in some kind of formal workshop that produced stemmed tools as valued items of social significance. These tools entered an array of exchange networks across the Archipelago and beyond. These networks are likely to have facilitated the later spread of the Lapita cultural complex across this island world.
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