Moving into montane rainforests was a unique behavioural innovation developed by Pleistocene Homo sapiens as they expanded out of Africa and through Southeast Asia and Sahul for the first time. However, faunal sequences from these environments that shed light on past hunting practices are rare. In this paper we assess zooarchaeological evidence from Yuku and Kiowa, two sites that span that Pleistocene to Holocene boundary in the New Guinea Highlands. We present new AMS radiocarbon dates and a revision of the stratigraphic sequences for these sites, and examine millennial-scale changes to vertebrate faunal composition based on NISP, MNI, and linear morphometric data to shed light on variability in hunting practices, processes of natural cave deposition, and the local palaeoenvironment at the end of the LGM through to the Late Holocene. We show that Yuku was first occupied at least c. 17,500 years ago and that Late Pleistocene–Early Holocene hunters targeted a wide range of small-bodied and agile species from the mid-montane forest, with a particular focus on cuscus (Phalanger spp.). At Kiowa, occupied from around 12,000 years ago, a similar range of species were targeted, but with an added emphasis on specialised Dobsonia magna fruit bat hunting. We then integrate other zooarchaeological data from the wider Highlands zone to build a model of generalist-specialist hunting dynamics and examine how this more broadly contributes to our understanding of tropical foraging during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene.

进入山地雨林是更新世人类的一项独特的行为创新随着他们第一次从非洲扩展到东南亚和Sahul。但是，来自这些环境的动物序列很少能说明过去的狩猎做法。在本文中，我们评估了来自Yuku和Kiowa的动物考古学证据，这两个站点跨越了新几内亚高原的更新世至全新世边界。我们介绍了这些地点的新的AMS放射性碳数据日期和地层序列的修订版，并根据NISP，MNI和线性形态计量数据检查了脊椎动物动物组成的千禧年尺度变化，以阐明狩猎活动，自然洞穴过程中的变异性沉积，以及LGM末尾至全新世晚期的局部古环境。我们显示，Yuku至少被占领了c。17Phalanger物种。在约有12,000年前占领的基奥瓦，也针对了类似的物种，但重点是专门捕猎大白海棠果蝠。然后，我们将更广泛的高地地区的其他动物考古学数据整合起来，以建立通才-专才狩猎动态的模型，并研究这在我们对晚更新世和全新世热带觅食的更广泛的贡献上。