Archaeological Studies of the Middle and Late Holocene, Papua New Guinea. Part VII. The evolution of Sio pottery: evidence from three sites in northeastern Papua New Guinea

Abstract

This paper describes changes through time in the characteristics of one of the ceramic wares excavated in 1983–84 from the KLJ and KLK sites in the Siassi Islands and the KBQ site at Sio, located in the Vitiaz Strait region in northeastern Papua New Guinea (Lilley, 1986). This region was the scene of one the anthropologically best-known long-distance maritime trading networks in Melanesia, described in Harding's (1967) classic ethnography Voyagers of the Vitiaz Strait. The pattern of change mirrors that associated with the late prehistoric rise of specialized production for trade described on the Papuan south coast (Allen, 1984; Irwin, 1985). This indicates the operation of similar processes of socioeconomic intensification and concomitant technological evolution across northwestern Melanesia.