Late Lapita seafaring networks: Giligilina, a new Lapita site on the Papua New Guinea south coast

The discovery of stratified Lapita sites at Caution Bay on the Papua New Guinea (PNG) south coast containing pottery sherds with a limited range of motifs, led to the proposal that the south coast of PNG may have been a late Lapita outpost at the southwestern margins of a broader Oceanic Lapita world. However, confirming such spatial separation has been challenging due to the paucity of known archaeological sites dating to earlier than 2,000 years ago along 500 km of coastline in southern mainland PNG between Caution Bay and the eastern tip of the PNG mainland. Aiming to address this knowledge gap, we turned attention to a former coastal location now positioned 3.2 km inland of the Aroma Coast, 160–180 km southeast of Caution Bay. There, a small Late Lapita pottery sherd assemblage from an ancestral village called Giligilina has now been dated to sometime between 2,660 and 2,420 cal BP. The Giligilina assemblage includes three dentate-stamped sherds and two sherds with distinctive shell-impressed decorations. These decorations are comparable to dentate-stamped and shell-impressed sherds found in stratigraphic association at Late Lapita sites both on the PNG mainland and across island Oceania to the east. Chronostratigraphic associations between dentate-stamped designs and shell-impressions confirm Late Lapita interaction across a broad island Oceanic Lapita world. This was a period marked by the movement of seafarers transporting pottery and/or ceramic-making knowledge westward into the Torres Strait and southward along the Australian coast. Giligilina contributes to a narrative of dynamic and pronounced Late Lapita seafaring suggesting a trajectory of social change that ultimately led to the end of archaeologically recognisable Lapita decorative conventions.