Research into the prehistory of the Bismarck Archipelago draws upon a number of sources of information including archaeology, linguistics and biological anthropology. However, the information provided by the first discipline usually takes precedence when attempting to define the prehistory of the region. Thus it is not possible for linguistic evidence to determine when a particular island or region was first occupied: linguistic reconstructions are an attempt to approach the past by examining the present. Evidence for the antiquity of occupation of a particular place may only be revealed securely by archaeology. Although there are now some points of consensus between scholars in these disciplines (e.g. there was some sort of movement of people speaking Austronesian languages assoiated with the introduction of Lapita pottery), it should be noted that the evidence provided by these three related disciplines dos not always correlate exactly. Thus in the 1983 volume of the Journal of Human Evolution a linguist proposes a sequence for different migrations to New Guinea and Island Western Melanesia (Wurm, 1983), while a number of biological anthropologists (e.g. Rhoads, 1983; Sarjeanston et al., 1983) argue that the evidence of various gene frequencies is not suggestive of a one-to-one relationship between the language of groups and their ethnic affinities. Thus they propose that systems of migrations based on linguistics may have to be adjusted to accommodate biological evidence.

An essay submitted in partial fulfilment of a Bachelor of Arts Honours Degree, Department of Prehistory and Anthropology, The Faculties, Australian National University (61 p)