Ancient shells and pottery reveal the vast 3,200-years-old trade routes of Oceania's Indigenous peoples

Published: August 21, 2025 10:40pm EDT

New research conducted at Walufeni Cave, an important archaeological site in Papua New Guinea, reveals new evidence of long-distance interactions between Oceania’s Indigenous societies, as far back as 3,200 years ago.

Our new study, published in the journal Australian Archaeology, is the first archaeological research undertaken on the Great Papuan Plateau. The findings continue to undermine the historical Eurocentric idea that early Indigenous societies in this region were static and unchanging.

Instead, we find further evidence for what Monash Professor of Indigenous Archaeology Ian J. McNiven calls the Coral Sea Cultural Interaction Sphere: a dynamic interchange of trade, ideas and movement over a vast region encompassing New Guinea, the Torres Strait, and north-eastern Australia.



Walufeni Cave is an important archaeological site in the Great Papuan Plateau. Bryce Barker

Tracking movement across Sahul

The goal of the Great Papuan Plateau project was to determine whether the plateau may have been an eastern pathway for the movement of early people into north-eastern Australia, at a time when New Guinea and Australia were joined in the continent of Sahul.

More:
https://theconversation.com/ancient-shells-and-pottery-reveal-the-vast-3-200-years-old-trade-routes-of-oceanias-indigenous-peoples-261950