Pottery traditions in the D'Entrecasteaux Islands of Papua

Abstract

Archaeology and ethnography are dealing respectively with past and present aspects of society. The fluctuating relationship between the two disciplines has resulted from changing evaluations of the extent to which the restricted material evidence recovered by the archaeologist can be validly interpreted in ways of interest to the ethnographer. Such evaluations have in part influenced and certainly been influenced by changes of problem interest on the part of both archaeologists and ethnographers within their own discipline.