| Abstract: |
In this paper I discuss alternative scenarios for links between linguistically- and archaeologically-attested change in past human behavior in the west New Britain-north New Guinea region of Papua New Guinea (Figure 1). I focus on some of the different ways in which linguistic and archaeological evidence might reflect patterns of past population movements. After setting out the specifics of the problem, I outline the relevant linguistic and archaeological evidence. I go on to discuss why I think the latter looks the way it does and how it connects readily with linguistic evidence for human migration despite an argument that it may not "look the way it should" if it were truly a reflection of a migration. In doing so, I contrast these developments with the spread of the Lapita phenomenon beyond the Bismarck Archipelago and with the appearance of ceramics on the Papuan south coast. Both of the latter examples conform with conventional expectations regarding archaeological evidence for a substantial relocation of a unified ethnolinguistic population. I conclude that migration can have a variety of archaeological expressions owing to the temporal scale of the cases in question, but I leave for another time the question of why some migrations are much faster than others (see Anthony 1990). Towards the end of the discussion, I speculate at some length on the derivation of post-Lapita ceramics in the west New Britain-north New Guinea region. I should point out that the position taken in this paper regarding the details of the archaeological sequence in the west New Britain-north New Guinea region refines earlier interpretations, even quite recent ones (e.g. Lilley in press a).
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