Rethinking cultural chronologies and past landscape engagement in the Kopi region, Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Archaeological models of regional occupation for culture change in and the arrival of trade goods into, the Gulf Province of Papua New Guinea have largely relied on pioneering research undertaken in the 1970s, prior to the advent of AMS radiocarbon dating and from a time when excavation methods were relatively coarse-grained. These early chronologies were based on bulk radiocarbon samples potentially incorporating materials from multiple periods of occupation, and freshwater shells `contaminated' by old carbon from regional Miocene limestones necessitating the application of correction factors of uncertain local applicability. This paper revises chronological aspects of pre-European contact history for the mid-Kikori River region of the Gulf Province. It presents a suite of 100 new AMS radiocarbon dates on individual pieces of charcoal, human teeth and a fish bone from 16 sites, in order to re-assess previous chronologies and understandings of the region's history, and to provide a new foundation for future modelling of site and regional land use. Past settlement systems in this region were guided by processes of social interaction and thus need to be interrogated through notions of social landscape in historical perspective.