knowledge, and extractive efficiencies increased, moving resources to the people increased.

Tectonic uplift and deep submarine contours along the north coast of New Ireland allow a rare glimpse into late Pleistocene coastal adaptations in the region. Two limestone cave sites, Buang Merebak and Matenkupkum, about 140 kilometers apart, were initially occupied ca. 32,000–35,000 years ago. Both have extensive marine-shell midden deposits, and both contain fish bones that date from the beginning of occupation. Shell-fishing strategies from both sites indicate that initially, people targeted the larger species, which provided the best returns, and it is clear that periods of human absence were sufficiently long to allow for regeneration of the species. Later, a more intensive use of the shell resources diminished the availability of these larger species, which were then supplemented by a greater variety of smaller species.

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Prehistoric drainage ditches for gardens in swampland in the Wahgi Valley, Papua New Guinea. Excavations at the Kuk site have yielded evidence of hydraulic controls for horticulture ca. 9000 B.C.

(J. Golson)

People moved both inland and further east. About 36,000 years ago, outcroppings of limestone cherts (a kind of sedimentary rock used for making stone tools) were quarried at two locations in the vicinity of Yombon, about thirty kilometers inland from the southwestern coast of New Britain, which reflects the systematic discovery and exploitation of useful resources in the region at an early date. Kilu Cave in the northern Solomons Island chain was occupied sporadically between 29,000 b.p. and ca. 20,000 b.p. Stone tools from this site carry residues of Colocasia and Alocasia taro in quantities sufficient to suggest that cultivated taro forms with large tubers, the product of prior human selection, were being processed.

Reaching the Solomon Islands required a sea journey about twice that of any prior necessary crossing between mainland Southeast Asia and the Bismarck Archipelago. This journey was also the first without two-way intervisibility—at a point in the journey the voyagers were unable to see where they were going or where they had been. But by 21,000 b.p., people had reached Manus Island in the Admiralties group, and this voyage, over 200 kilometers whether attempted