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The impacts of human-induced environmental change that characterize the Anthropocene are not felt equally across the globe. In the tropics, the potential for the sudden collapse of ecosystems in response to multiple interacting pressures has been of increasing concern in ecological and conservation research. The tropical ecosystems of Papua New Guinea are areas of diverse rainforest flora and fauna, inhabited by human populations that are equally diverse, both culturally and linguistically. These people and the ecosystems they rely on are being put under increasing pressure from mineral resource extraction, population growth, land clearing, invasive species, and novel pollutants. This study details the last ∼90 y of impacts on ecosystem dynamics in one of the most biologically diverse, yet poorly understood, tropical wetland ecosystems of the region. The lake is listed as a Ramsar wetland of international importance, yet, since initial European contact in the 1930s and the opening of mineral resource extraction facilities in the 1990s, there has been a dramatic increase in deforestation and an influx of people to the area. Using multiproxy paleoenvironmental records from lake sediments, we show how these anthropogenic impacts have transformed Lake Kutubu. The recent collapse of algal communities represents an ecological tipping point that is likely to have ongoing repercussions for this important wetland’s ecosystems. We argue that the incorporation of an adequate historical perspective into models for wetland management and conservation is critical in understanding how to mitigate the impacts of ecological catastrophes such as biodiversity loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Agarabi speakers are the only pottery producers known from the PNG Highlands. • The chaîne opératoire for Agarabi pottery differs from nearby pottery industries. • They produce generally elongated vessels from coiling and gentle beating. • Vessel trade was not extensive, but occurred with neighbouring communities. • Data informs on the dynamics that led to non-Austronesian pottery in the Highlands. The only pottery known to have been produced in the New Guinea Highlands is associated with communities speaking Agarabi, a non-Austronesian language in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. This paper provides a comprehensive summary of Agarabi pottery forms and production processes, combining published sources with previously unpublished records, notes, sketches and photographs from ethnoarchaeological fieldwork amongst Agarabi speakers in the Kainantu District in 1987. Agarabi vessels are characterised by their ovoid elongated shape with gently pointed bases and out-curving rims. Decoration, where it is present, occurs on the rims and / or around the neck and consists of incisions or punctate impressions, often from multi-toothed combs. These characteristics clearly distinguish Agarabi ware from pottery produced in communities speaking Austronesian languages in the neighbouring Upper Markham and Middle Ramu valleys. The multi-faceted description of Agarabi pottery production presented here provides a foundation for further enquiry into the cultural processes and historical trajectories that have shaped this unique Highlands ceramic ware. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the critical ways in which the relationship between landscape and memory is mediated by performance-through song, dance, ritual and the movements of the living and the dead. In the Lihir group of islands, in Papua New Guinea, these acts of memorialisation are rehearsed on a remarkable stage, an involuted cosmography or sacred geography in which the cosmological point of origin, the sacred rock of Ailaya, is also the ultimate destination for all human and spirit forms. Spirit beings are held to have emerged from the Ailaya, spreading across the island group, their tracks charting the links amongst distant clan members and the networks of alliance between trading partners. It is to the Ailaya that the spirits of deceased Lihirians must return, following preparatory mortuary rites and sung along a route that recalls the spirit connections. This teleological process is mapped through an account of the performance of relationships between people and land, to which an additional layer of complexity is added by the presence of a giant gold mine, in which the Ailaya is again the central feature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the case for synthetic histories-broad narratives of historical process that critically combine the insights and perspectives of research from multiple disciplines. Drawing on the 28 contributions to the edited volume Papuan Pasts, on the deep history of the Papuan peoples, a brief synthesis of findings is offered in the form of a narrative. This enables the identification of a series of gaps, not just in the spatial and temporal coverage of research but also in the range of perspectives employed. The absence of Papuan voices is particularly challenging, and suggests that the future of Papuan histories lies in the closer articulation of a concern for deep time and questions of the genesis and immediate past of living Papuan communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Models of prehistoric agricultural transformation in the New Guinea highlands have relied heavily on sequences of the use and abandonment of drained wetland gardens. Drawing on archaeological and oral historical lines of evidence, this paper offers a detailed account of wetland use in the Tari region of the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. The relatively late exploitation of the largest and most productive wetland in this region poses problems for models of agricultural change founded principally on population pressure, and requires a more complex account that integrates environmental and social explanations, and allows for both intended and unintended consequences for the actions of historical agents. Explanations for the apparent intensification of wetland use in the Haeapugua Swamp, the case study for this paper, appear to require a complex intersection of hydrological constraints and increasing demands on production, relating specifically to the production of pigs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the apocalyptic ideas of the Huli people of Papua New Guinea. Diffusion of the Christian notion of apocalypse with the indigenous eschatology; Significance of the adoption of Christian belief to the Huli conceptions of the role of human agency of history.

Focuses on the different existing genres of West New Guinea history. Lack of community consultation by consultative political leaders; Broad disregard for indigenous voices in the writing of history; Evolution of West New Guinea's cartographic profile; Parallel history of contest over the naming of West New Guinea.

The Huli community of the Tari region has been profoundly influenced through contact with the wider world since the 1930s. However, the trajectories of change and the basic structural properties of Huli society need to be understood within the context of much longer-term histories of transformation. This paper briefly reviews evidence drawn from a range of disciplines for the history of Huli settlement in the Tari region, and the nature of changes in Huli society both before and after contact with the colonial government.