Abstract
This study reports on new ceramic finds from the Murray Islands group in the Eastern Torres Strait. Combined use of petrography (optical mineralogy) and portable X-Ray fluorescence has identified at least two sources for archaeological ceramics in the region. Combined radiocarbon and U-Th dating of an early potsherd establishes ceramic manufacture and transport by at least 2600 years ago. These findings provide new insights into the uptake of Austronesian style maritime and ceramic technologies by Papuan and / or Indigenous Australian groups in the Late Holocene.
The discovery of Lapita-decorated ceramics in the Massim region and southern Papua New Guinea coast, along with finds of pottery on Jiigurru (Lizard Island) in the Great Barrier Reef and in the Torres Strait demonstrates the presence of seaborne movements in the Coral Sea as early as ∼ 2900–2500 cal. BP (Ulm et al. 2024). As an introduced Austronesian technology, ceramics are central to archaeological understandings of early maritime routes and cross-cultural relationships between Island Southeast Asians, Papuan peoples, and Indigenous Australians. In the Torres Strait only a small number of pot sherds have been reported. Those found in the western islands were probably made using local materials, while the ceramics from eastern islands have been sourced to southern Papua New Guinea (Carter 2004). In this paper, petrographic examination of sherd tempers recently recovered from the Eastern Torres Strait islands of Dauar and Waier indicate derivation from the Purari River basin in southern New Guinea. A distinct granitic temper sherd dated to ∼ 2600 cal. BP differs from known sherd tempers and likely originates from the Western Torres Strait. The provenance of this granitic sherd is consistent with the early movement of ceramic-making groups along the south New Guinea coast and into the Torres Strait, and with the ability of these groups to make long-distance passages in the Arafura and Coral Seas.