Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T15:33:51.810Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

COMBINING ORAL TRADITIONS AND BAYESIAN CHRONOLOGICAL MODELING TO UNDERSTAND VILLAGE DEVELOPMENT IN THE GULF OF PAPUA (PAPUA NEW GUINEA)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2021

Chris Urwin Open the ORCID record for Chris Urwin [Opens in a new window] ,
Quan Hua Open the ORCID record for Quan Hua [Opens in a new window]  and
Henry Arifeae
Chris Urwin*
Affiliation:
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory2601, Australia Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria3800, Australia
Quan Hua
Affiliation:
Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Locked Bag 2001, Kirrawee DC, New South Wales2232, Australia
Henry Arifeae
Affiliation:
Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery, Independence Drive, Waigani, PO Box 5560, Boroko, NCD, Papua New Guinea
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

When European colonists arrived in the late 19th century, large villages dotted the coastline of the Gulf of Papua (southern Papua New Guinea). These central places sustained long-distance exchange and decade-spanning ceremonial cycles. Besides ethnohistoric records, little is known of the villages’ antiquity, spatiality, or development. Here we combine oral traditional and 14C chronological evidence to investigate the spatial history of two ancestral village sites in Orokolo Bay: Popo and Mirimua Mapoe. A Bayesian model composed of 35 14C assays from seven excavations, alongside the oral traditional accounts, demonstrates that people lived at Popo from 765–575 cal BP until 220–40 cal BP, at which time they moved southwards to Mirimua Mapoe. The village of Popo spanned ca. 34 ha and was composed of various estates, each occupied by a different tribe. Through time, the inhabitants of Popo transformed (e.g., expanded, contracted, and shifted) the village to manage social and ceremonial priorities, long-distance exchange opportunities and changing marine environments. Ours is a crucial case study of how oral traditional ways of understanding the past interrelate with the information generated by Bayesian 14C analyses. We conclude by reflecting on the limitations, strengths, and uncertainties inherent to these forms of chronological knowledge.

Keywords

chronologyoral traditionPapua New Guineavillage development
Type
Research Article
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , April 2021 , pp. 647 - 667
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press for the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Allen, J. 2017. Excavations on Motupore Island: Central District, Papua New Guinea. Otago: University of Otago, Working Papers in Anthropology and Archaeology.Google Scholar
Barker, B, Lamb, L, David, B, Skelly, R, Korokai, K. 2015. Dating of in situ longhouse (dubu daima) posts in the Kikori River delta: refining chronologies of island village occupation in the lower Kikori River delta, Papua New Guinea. Quaternary International 385:27–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barton, FR. 1910. Trading voyages to the Gulf of Papua. In: Seligman, CE, editor. The Melanesians of British New Guinea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 96–120.Google Scholar
Basiaco, A, Urwin, C, Manne, T. 2020. Worked bone and teeth from Orokolo Bay in the Papuan Gulf (Papua New Guinea). Australian Archaeology 86(3):226–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayliss, A. 2015. Quality in Bayesian chronological models in archaeology. World Archaeology 47(4):677–700.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayliss, A, Bronk Ramsey, C, van der Plicht, J, Whittle, A. 2007. Bradshaw and Bayes: towards a timetable for the Neolithic. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17(1):1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, JA. 2009. Documenting discontent: struggles for recognition in the Purari Delta of Papua New Guinea. Australian Journal of Anthropology 20(1):28–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, CA. 2009. Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 51(1):337–360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, CA. 1995. Radiocarbon calibration and analysis of stratigraphy: the OxCal program. Radiocarbon 37(2):425–430.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, HA. 1988. Three Elema myths, recorded in Toaripi, translated and annotated by Herbert A. Brown. Pacific Linguistics Series B, No. 98. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Brown, HA. 1973. The Eleman language family. In: Franklin, K, editor. The linguistic situation in the Gulf District and adjacent areas, Papua New Guinea. Pacific Linguistics Series C, No. 26. Canberra: Australian National University. p. 279–376.Google Scholar
Busse, M. 2005. Wandering hero stories in the southern lowlands of New Guinea: culture areas, comparison, and history. Cultural Anthropology 20(4):443–473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chalmers, J. 1887. Pioneering in New Guinea. London: The Religious Tract Society.Google Scholar
David, B. 2008. Rethinking cultural chronologies and past landscape engagement in the Kopi region, Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea. The Holocene 18(3):463–479.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
David, B, McNiven, IM. 2004. Western Torres Strait cultural history project: research design and initial results. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, Cultural Heritage Series 3:199–208.Google Scholar
David, B, Araho, N, Barker, B, Kuaso, A, Moffat, I. 2009. Keveoki 1: exploring the Hiri ceramics trade at a short-lived village site near the Vailala River, Papua New Guinea. Australian Archaeology 68(1):11–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dwyer, PD, Minnegal, M. 2018. “We are fire clan”: groups, names and identity in Papua New Guinea. Oceania 88(1):90–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Laguna, F. 1960. The story of a Tlingit community: A problem in the relationship between archeological, ethnological, and historical methods. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 172:1–254 Google Scholar
Edinborough, K, Porčic, M, Martindale, A, Brown, TJ, Supernant, K, Ames, KM. 2017. Radiocarbon test for demographic events in written and oral history. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114(47):12436–12441.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fink, D, Hotchkis, M, Hua, Q, Jacobsen, G, Smith, AM, Zoppi, U, Child, D, Mifsud, C, van der Gaast, H, Williams, A, Williams, M. 2004. The ANTARES AMS facility at ANSTO. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 223–224:109–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankel, D, Thompson, K, Vanderwal, RL. 1994. Kerema and Kinomere. In: Frankel, D, Rhoads, JW, editors. Archaeology of a coastal exchange system: Sites and ceramics of the Papuan Gulf. Research Papers in Archaeology and Natural History 25. Canberra: The Australian National University. p. 1–48.Google Scholar
Garanger, J. 1982. Archaeology of the New Hebrides. Sydney: University of Sydney.Google Scholar
Gosden, C, Lock, G. 1998. Prehistoric histories. World Archaeology 30(1):2–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, WD, Krus, AM. 2018. The myths and realities of Bayesian chronological modeling revealed. American Antiquity 83(2):187–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hua, Q, Jacobsen, GE, Zoppi, U, Lawson, EM, Williams, AA, Smith, AM, McGann, MJ. 2001. Progress in radiocarbon target preparation at the ANTARES AMS Centre. Radiocarbon 43(2A):275–282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Juárez-Orozco, SM, Siebe, C, Fernández y Fernández, D. 2017. Causes and effects of forest fires in tropical rainforests: a bibliometric approach. Tropical Conservation Science 10:1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kakare, I. 1976. MotuMotu Sariva: trading voyages from the Gulf to Port Moresby. Oral History 4(10):69–91.Google Scholar
Kakare, I, Karava, S. 1975. The Uritai Toaripi. Oral History 3(9):38–55.Google Scholar
Kirch, PV. 2018. Voices on the wind, traces in the earth: integrating oral narrative and archaeology in Polynesian history. Journal of the Polynesian Society 127(3):275–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knauft, BM. 1993. South coast New Guinea cultures: history, comparison, dialectica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martindale, A. 2006. Methodological issues in the use of Tsimshian oral traditions. Journal Canadien d’Archéogie 30(2):158–192.Google Scholar
McNiven, IJ. 2016. Theoretical challenges of Indigenous archaeology: setting an agenda. American Antiquity 81(1):27–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNiven, IJ, Feldman, R. 2003. Ritually orchestrated seascapes: bone mounds and dugong hunting magic in Torres Strait, NE Australia. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 13(2):169–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNiven, IJ, David, B, Goemulgau, Kod, Fitzpatrick, J. 2009. The great kod of Pulu: mutual historical emergence of ceremonial sites and social groups in Torres Strait, northeast Australia. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19(3):291–397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mennis, M. 2015. Sailing for survival: a comparative report of the trading systems and trading canoes of the Bel people in the Madang area and of the Motu people in the Port Moresby area of Papua New Guinea. Port Moresby: University of Otago Working Papers in Anthropology 2.Google Scholar
Oram, N. 1982. Pots for sago: The hiri trading network. In: Dutton, T, editor. The hiri in history: further aspects of long distance Motu trade in Central Papua. Pacific Research Monograph 8. Canberra: The Australian National University. p. 1–34.Google Scholar
Pendergast, DM, Meighan, CW. 1959. Folk traditions as historical fact: a Paiute example. Journal of American Folklore 72:128–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reimer, PJ, Austin, WEN, Bard, E, Bayliss, A, Blackwell, PG, Bronk Ramsey, C, Butzin, M, Cheng, H, Edwards, RL, Friedrich, M, Grootes, PM, Guilderson, TP, Hajdas, I, Heaton, TJ, Hogg, AG, Hughen, KA, Kromer, B, Manning, SW, Muscheler, R, Palmer, JG, Pearson, C, van der Plicht, J, Reimer, RW, Richards, DA, Scott, EM, Southon, JR, Turney, CSM, Wacker, L, Adolphi, F, Büntgen, U, Capano, M, Fahrni, SM, Fogtmann-Schulz, A, Friedrich, R, Köhler, P, Kudsk, S, Miyake, F, Olsen, J, Reinig, F, Sakamoto, M, Sookdeo, A, Talamo, S. 2020. The IntCal20 Northern Hemisphere radiocarbon age calibration curve (0–55 cal kBP). Radiocarbon. doi: 10.1017/RDC.2020.41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rhoads, JW. 1980. Through a glass darkly: present and past land-use systems of Papuan sagopalm users [unpublished PhD thesis]. Canberra: The Australian National University.Google Scholar
Rhoads, JW. 1994. The Popo site. In: Frankel, D, Rhoads, JW, editors. Archaeology of a coastal exchange system: sites and ceramics of the Papuan Gulf. Research Papers in Archaeology and Natural History 25. Canberra: The Australian National University. p. 53–69.Google Scholar
Ruxton, BP, Paijmans, K, Bleeker, P, Leach, BJ. 1969. Land systems of the Kerema-Vailala area. In: Lands of the Kerema-Vailala area, Papua New Guinea. Land Research Series 23. Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing. p. 17–49.Google Scholar
Schiffer, MB. 1986. Radiocarbon dating and the “old wood” problem: the case of the Hohokam chronology. Journal of Archaeological Science 13(1):13–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheppard, PJ, Walter, R, Aswani, S. 2004. Oral tradition and the creation of late prehistory in Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands. Records of the Australian Museum, Supplement 29:123–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skelly, R, David, B. 2017. Hiri: archaeology of long-distance maritime trade along the south coast of Papua New Guinea. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Thom, BG, Wright, LD. 1983. Geomorphology of the Purari delta. In: Petr, T, editor. The Purari: tropical environment of a high rainfall river basin. The Hague: Kluwer. 47–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toniello, G, Lepofsky, D, Lertzman-Lepofsky, G, Salomon, AK, Rowell, K. 2019. 11,500 y of human–clam relationships provide long-term context for intertidal management in the Salish Sea, British Columbia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 116(44):22106–22114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Urwin, C. 2019a. Building and remembering: constructing ancestral place at Popo, Orokolo Bay, Papua New Guinea [unpublished PhD thesis]. Clayton: Monash University.Google Scholar
Urwin, C. 2019b. Excavating and interpreting ancestral action: stories from the subsurface of Orokolo Bay, Papua New Guinea. Journal of Social Archaeology 19(3):279–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Urwin, C, Hua, Q, Skelly, RJ, Arifeae, H. 2018. The chronology of Popo, an ancestral village site in Orokolo Bay, Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea. Australian Archaeology 84(1):90–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vanderwal, RL. 1973. Prehistoric studies in central coastal Papua [unpublished PhD thesis]. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
Williams, FE. 1976. Bull-roarers in the Papuan Gulf. In: Schwimmer, E editor. Francis Edgar Williams: “The Vailala Madness” and other essays. London: CA. Hurst and Company. p. 73–122.Google Scholar
Williams, FE. 1940. Drama of Orokolo: the social and ceremonial life of the Elema. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, FE. 1924. The natives of the Purari delta. Port Moresby: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Urwin et al. supplementary material

Urwin et al. supplementary material

Download Urwin et al. supplementary material(File)
File 45.6 KB