War Shields of the Torricelli Mountains,West Sepik Province,Papua New Guinea

ABSTRACT The usefulness of the term ‘ethnolinguistic group’, as a construct suggesting that ‘differences in language automatically translate into differences in culture’, has been questioned by Welsch, Terrel and Nadolski (1992). Not many researchers would insist on the term ‘automatically’, but would nevertheless support an argument for a strong correlation between material culture and language. As a contribution to this debate, we discuss two types of wood shields of the Torricelli Mountains (one of which is being identified for the first time) and pigskin shields to the south of the Torricellis, their use, and the details of the carved designs of the wood shields. The results of our analysis provide limited support for the correlation of material culture and language but highlight the need for analysis of material culture based on reliable data for a large number and wide range of artefacts, from defined regions, presently held in museums and private collections worldwide.     

New Guinea Leadership as Ethnographic Analogy: A Critical Review

Increasingly, archaeologists are recognizing cultural anthropological work in New Guinea as an important source of ethnographic analogy for understanding the initial stages of cultural evolution. This article critically reviews the literature on leadership in contact-era New Guinea. It is intended as an introduction both to different theoretical interpretations of leadership, as these have developed from Marshal Sahlins's Big-man archetype to the present, and to the primary literature on the topic. It points to several implications for archaeological theory, identifies a number of problems in the ethnography and theory of contact-era New Guinea leadership, and concludes with a brief guide to deploying the ethnographic and theoretical literature.     

Marine Quaternary dinoflagellate cysts of Australia,Papua-New Guinea,New Zealand and the Southern Ocean: a review

Dinoflagellate cysts are widespread in Australian, Papua-New Guinea, New Zealand and Southern Ocean Pleistocene and Recent marine sediments. They occur in estuaries and deltas as well as on the continental shelf and in ocean basins. They have proven invaluable in palaeoecology for the interpretation of changing temperature, salinity and distance from shore in particular. These changes have also been used to examine climate change in Quaternary sequences. A small number of First Appearance Datums (FADs) and Last Appearance Datums (LADs) within this time period allows only limited biostratigraphic definition. LADs within the Pleistocene of southern Australia include Achomosphaera ramulifera and Spiniferites rubinus. Introduction within the past 50 years of several taxa, such as Gymnodinium catenatum and Gymnodinium microreticulatum, has been attributed to ballast water import.     

The forbidden sex in the New Guinea highlands

Meigs, Anna S. Food, Sex and Pollution: A New Guinea Religion. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1984. xix + 196 pp. including appendices, glossary, bibliography, and index. $22.50 cloth.