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New scientific project in the framework of the Papuan Past Project

Summary of the NUTRIOCEO project

In 2025, a new scientific project, named NUTRIOCEO, will be launched by the Papuan Past Project (PPP) team. The NUTRIOCEO project is funded by the ANR funding body (ANR-24-CE21-0317) for the next three years and is led by Dr Nicolas Brucato. The project will focus on the interaction between Papua New Guinean human genomes, microbiomes and dietary changes in both historical and modern times. It will involve PPP team members (Nicolas Brucato, François-Xavier Ricaut, Christopher Kinipi and new partners from PNG (Alfred Kik) and from the USA (Laura Weyrich). A kick-off meeting will be held between all partners in Spring 2025 to initiate the project and to plan future fieldworks in different parts of PNG. The NUTRIOCEO project is the continuation of all the research already conducted by the PPP which aims to better understand the demographic and adaptive history of Papua New Guineans through archaeological, anthropological and biological approaches.

 

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The members of the Papuan Past Project at the AAA 2024 Conference

The members of the Papuan Past Project took part to the Australian Archaeological Association Annual Conference 2024 (AAA), 3-6 December 2024, Cairns, Australia. Two members of the project were present, Avis Babalu and Matthew Leavesley. Avis Babalu presented a paper (oral presentation) entitled “A Collaborative Model for Archaeological Research in the Middle Purari, Gulf of Papua, Papua New Guinea” (co-authored with Matthew Leavesley at the session Highlighting Collaborative Research and Exploring Narratives of the Past in New Guinea. Continue reading “The members of the Papuan Past Project at the AAA 2024 Conference”

Presentation at the “European Roundtable on Southeast Asian Archaeology”, Paris, 8-9 July 2024

On July, 8, 2024, Sébastien Plutniak gave a presentation at the “European Roundtable on Southeast Asian Archaeology: Current Research and Perspectives” held at the Institut national d’histoire de l’art in Paris (France). Based on fieldwork in carried out in the Sepik region in 2018 and 2019, he addressed relations between environmental knowledge and power social structure.

What do locals know, think they know, and what does it teach us? The case of caves-related knowledge in a rural community, northern New Guinea

Since the 19th century and the development of scientific anthropology, rock art has been a continuous source of fascination and rumination about the possible thoughts and cognitive capacities of past humans. Because in some regions of the world people still live around rock art locations—or create rock art—attempts at relating past and current practices and people were continuously reinvented in multiple forms. In this perspective, recent literature published in English called to “bridge the gap” between rock art studies and ethnoarchaeology. I propose a radical answer to this call from the case of a rural community in the Sepik region, northern New Guinea, where multiple caves (adorned or not) exist. This study, focusing on the distribution of knowledge about these caves in the social structure, addresses issues related to the anthropology of archaeological knowledge, of ownership, and to the local consequences of anthropological research.

Archaeological fieldwork at Eripe cave complex (Gulf province, Papua New Guinea)

From the 29th May to the 20th of June 2024, a team of six people carried out the 2nd fieldwork of the Papuan Past Project in the Purari region, following our 2023 survey.

They undertook an archaeological excavation in the Eripe cave complex in the upper Purari region, near Uraru village (Kikori district, Gulf province). The team was composed of two CNRS researchers – French National Centre for Scientific Research (François-Xavier Ricaut, Sébastien Plutniak), one student from the University of Toulouse, France (Martial Seguin), one researcher from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil (Astolfo Araujo), one researcher from the University of Papua New Guinea (Matthew Leavesley), and one cultural heritage officer from TotalEnergies EP PNG Ltd (Avis Babalu) who is also pursuing a Master’s in Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Papua New Guinea.

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