Through a glass darkly : present and past land-use systems of Papuan sagopalm users

Abstract

This study concerns the application of ethnographic information to the understanding of prehistoric peoples. The ethnography of contemporary sago-using peoples, who inhabit the foothill margin of the deltaic swamps of the Papuan Gulf, and the archaeological evidence recovered from a series of excavated open and rock shelter sites serve as the basis for this work.The Kairi living at Waira Village, who are the focus of my ethnographic research, follow a dual residence system: permanent villages along large rivers and temporary encampments sited near the interior margin of a broad alluvial plain. Their primary subsistence pursuits: sago-making, fishing and hunting follow traditional modes; however, European tools have contributed to some recent alterations. The contemporary Kairi land-use strategy, as interpreted from a time-and-motion study of the VJaira community, is oriented from the location of sagopalm stands, instead of the village site. Taking this information and the observed seasonal flucuations in subsistence and settlement strategies into account I construct a model of contemporary land-use. This analogue and that derived for the contact period are expressed in a series of working and test hypotheses which relate the modelled behavioural patterns to their archaeological reflections. Before considering the archaeological evidence I derive a further set of alternative models from an analysis of other Melanesian sago-using groups. The usefulness of this expanded view of the application of ethnographic analogues - namely the projection of possible prehistoric systems for which there is no evidence in the area today - is demonstrated through model testing. The second part of the thesis considers the archaeological evidence and an assessment against the sui-tes of test hypotheses is made. The results suggest that the occupation of the Waira region extends over approximately the last 3000 years. Subsistence strategies appear to have changed little during that time from what is noted today. Settlement patterns have, however, altered between 1500-1200 BP and from just before European contact to today. This change is marked by the siting of villages along major waterways, repeated use of temporary encampments near the karst escarpment and occurrence of large amounts of exotic commodities. A consideration of the mechanisms of trade and exchange whereby exotic goods reached the Kairi area concludes this thesis. From this analysis I hypothesize that the times when the regional settlement pattern was altered represent intense periods of coastal trade linking sago-producing peoples of the Papuan Gulf with more easterly sited pottery-making communities. Show more