By Dylan Gaffney & Daud Aris Tanudirjo/The Conversation
In the deep human past, highly skilled seafarers made daring crossings from Asia to the Pacific Islands. It was a migration of global importance that shaped the distribution of our species – Homo sapiens – across the planet.
These mariners became the ancestors of people who live in the region today, from West Papua to Aotearoa New Zealand.
For archaeologists, however, the precise timing, location and nature of these maritime dispersals have been unclear.
For the first time, our new research provides direct evidence that seafarers travelled along the equator to reach islands off the coast of West Papua more than 50 millennia ago.
Digging at the Gateway to the Pacific
Our archaeological fieldwork on Waigeo Island in the Raja Ampat archipelago of West Papua represents the first major international collaboration of its kind, involving academics from New Zealand, West Papua, Indonesia and beyond.
We focused our excavations at Mololo Cave, a colossal limestone chamber surrounded by tropical rainforest. It stretches a hundred meters deep and is home to bat colonies, monitor lizards and the occasional snake.
In the local Ambel language, Mololo means the place where the currents come together, fittingly named for the choppy waters and large whirlpools in the nearby straits.
Archaeologists Daud Tanudirjo and Moses Dailom excavating at Mololo Cave. (Tristan Russell/ CC BY-SA)
Excavation uncovered several layers of human occupation…
