Rock Painting Traditions around Waigeo Island, Raja Ampat, West New Guinea

Rock paintings around the western tip of New Guinea are extensive but poorly understood. This paper describes rock art around the northern Raja Ampat Islands, just off the coast of western New Guinea. Two main painting traditions are documented: a red pigment tradition and a white pigment tradition. Red paintings generally occur up to 10 m above the modern mean sea-level and are stylistically related to a larger painting complex around the Bomberai Peninsula of New Guinea and Misool Island. It is likely that these sites have been uplifted from their original position, and were produced during the Mid–Late Holocene when the marine high-stand was several metres above the present level. The white pigment tradition generally occurs just a few metres above present sea level and could have been produced from canoes within the past few hundred years. We suggest Raja Ampat Islanders were interconnected with a wider maritime community using red pigment in the Late Holocene, and a distinctive white painting style emerged locally within the past few hundred years. Further documentation of West New Guinea’s rock paintings is required to clarify whether coastal painting traditions strictly relate to the presence of Austronesian speaking groups (part of an Austronesian Painting Tradition) or whether the imagery reflects the interaction between multiple linguistic groups, including speakers of Austronesian and Non-Austronesian languages.