Abstract
Papua New Guinea throughout the Pleistocene to mid Holocene underwent extensive climatic impacts allowing increased anthropogenic interactions to occur within the mainland Highlands and offshore coastal islands. These two interactions impacted the flora and fauna, with this research focusing on an important order to both the environment and people, Chiroptera, bats. Bats are overlooked throughout zooarchaeology even though they are an important resource, both in prehistory and today. To aid in broadening the limited archaeological literature this research investigates if there is evidence of climatic and/or anthropogenic impacts on Papua New Guinean bat populations during the late Pleistocene to mid Holocene.
To answer this research question and two hypotheses the cranial elements were utilised using a new methodological approach. The abundance and distribution of the elements identified to species and genus were recorded and compared. This was followed by the comparison of the elements’ morphological measurements, both within and across the sites and time periods. The comparison identified that there were changes in species/genus abundance and distributions within the sites between the time periods, especially during periods of intensive anthropogenic hunting following climatic amelioration. The morphological comparison differed, producing results either suggesting no statistically distinct morphological change between the ancestral and descendant populations or producing inconclusive results. Although, sample size limitations impacted the statistical outcomes.
The research conducted within this thesis answers the research question highlighting abundance and distribution changes, alongside limited morphological change. It also highlights that bats are extremely neglected within zooarchaeology and can indicate climatic and anthropogenic impacts. This indicates that further utilisation of bats within zooarchaeology needs to occur both within Papua New Guinea and the wider world.