A technological evaluation of the chipped stone assemblage from Nombe, Papua New Guinea

Abstract

The chipped stone industries of highlands New Guinea are noted for producing extremely amorphous assemblages that completely lack a formal component. This has led to major analytical problems, and resulted in these assemblages being very much sidelined in the construction of a prehistory for the New Guinea highlands. The analysis of the Nombe chipped stone assemblage at a structural and organizational level rather than through examination of the form of the artefacts themselves provided the opportunity to address these problems. To achieve this, a methodology was developed in two strands. The first was based around the concepts of least-effort, mobility, provisioning and risk. This provided the theoretical basis from which to approach the relationship between the chipped stone assemblage and overall subsistence. Second, an analytical methodology was developed around the concept of the chaîne opératoire to allow the examination of the technological structure of an assemblage without a formal component. Combining these concepts permitted the structure of the Nombe chipped stone assemblage to be seen and the way in which it changed as required by subsistence demands to be analyzed. Changes in the structure of the Nombe flaked assemblage were seen at the end of the Pleistocene and in the middle of the Holocene. The end of the Pleistocene was marked by a change from provisioning the individual with stone to provisioning Nombe, at least in part, and the wider use of chert as a raw material. The assemblage split organizationally, with limited provisioning of individuals continued using the chert component of the assemblage. The other important change in the Nombe assemblage occurred during the second half of the Holocene, marked by changing settlement and subsistence patterns that contributed to the demise of the whole flaked assemblage. The increased importance of the valley floors and the development of agriculture and pig husbandry reduced the relevance of the flaked assemblage to the point that by the time of European contact (the mid-1930s) flaked stone was no longer in widespread use. Of relevance beyond highlands New Guinea, the approach taken here demonstrated the role informal technology can play in major technological and subsistence developments over very long periods and the way in which this is reflected in the lithic record.