When European colonists arrived in the late 19th century, large villages dotted the coastline of the Gulf of Papua (southern Papua New Guinea). These central places sustained long-distance exchange and decade-spanning ceremonial cycles. Besides ethnohistoric records, little is known of the villages’ antiquity, spatiality, or development. Here we combine oral traditional and 14C chronological evidence to investigate the spatial history of two ancestral village sites in Orokolo Bay: Popo and Mirimua Mapoe. A Bayesian model composed of 35 14C assays from seven excavations, alongside the oral traditional accounts, demonstrates that people lived at Popo from 765–575 cal BP until 220–40 cal BP, at which time they moved southwards to Mirimua Mapoe. The village of Popo spanned ca. 34 ha and was composed of various estates, each occupied by a different tribe. Through time, the inhabitants of Popo transformed (e.g., expanded, contracted, and shifted) the village to manage social and ceremonial priorities, long-distance exchange opportunities and changing marine environments. Ours is a crucial case study of how oral traditional ways of understanding the past interrelate with the information generated by Bayesian 14C analyses. We conclude by reflecting on the limitations, strengths, and uncertainties inherent to these forms of chronological knowledge.

中文翻译：

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结合口头传统和贝叶斯年代模型来了解巴布亚湾（巴布亚新几内亚）的村庄发展

当欧洲殖民者在 19 世纪后期抵达时，大村庄散布在巴布亚湾（巴布亚新几内亚南部）的海岸线上。这些中心地方持续了长距离的交流和长达十年的仪式循环。除了民族历史记录外，人们对这些村庄的古代、空间或发展知之甚少。在这里，我们结合口头传统和14调查奥罗科洛湾两个祖村遗址空间历史的时间证据：Popo 和 Mirimua Mapoe。由 35 个组成的贝叶斯模型14来自 7 次挖掘的 C 分析以及口头传统记载表明，人们从 765-575 cal BP 到 220-40 cal BP 居住在波波，当时他们向南移动到 Mirimua Mapoe。波波村横跨约。34 公顷，由不同的庄园组成，每个庄园由不同的部落占据。随着时间的推移，波波的居民改变了（例如，扩大、收缩和转移）村庄，以管理社会和礼仪优先事项、长途交流机会和不断变化的海洋环境。我们的研究是一个重要的案例研究，说明了了解过去的口头传统方式如何与贝叶斯产生的信息相互关联14C 分析。最后，我们反思这些按时间顺序排列的知识形式所固有的局限性、优势和不确定性。