New Guinea's place in Southeast Asia: a study integrating archaeology, linguistics and genetics

Integrated linguistic and archaeological research will be conducted on the Onin Peninsula of Papua Barat, Indonesia to investigate the social interaction between western New Guinea and eastern Island Southeast Asia during the Holocene, and potentially earlier. The multi-disciplinary research will be integrated with leading work on human genetics to shed light on the historical construction of identity for purportedly Papuan and Austronesian communities who live in this region today, as well as critically evaluate the relevance of the application of these linguistic categories to non-linguistic contexts, namely, cultural or ethnic affiliation.