Pots and entrepots: A study of settlement, trade and the development of economic specialization in Papuan prehistory

Significant changes occurred within a regional settlement system in the Mailu area of south-east Papua. Some 2,000 years ago it was settled by people who practised an agricultural and fishing economy and lived in coastal villages which were functionally unspecialized. In successive periods sites formed coherent and structured spatial distributions; settlement density increased and there was an associated shift in village location. Through time one settlement, on Mailu Island, diverged from others at a rate which accelerated. It became more central with respect to the pattern of regional communication. It acquired a monopoly of pottery making while the pottery itself became transformed into a trade ware. Its population became much larger than any other and socially more stratified too. A number of factors are associated with the changes and their roles as causal agents are considered. They include ecological and locational factors, warfare, population increase and the role of middleman in trade.