Fluctuating local mobility from the end of the Pleistocene to the end of the Holocene on the north coast of New Guinea

The Watinglo rockshelter provides an occupation record from the central north coast of New Guinea from 13 ka to the last few hundred years, with a hiatus in the later Holocene. Examination of the lithic artefacts from this sequence suggests that within a paradigm of technological continuity and local resource procurement, there were notable fluctuations in the use of particular materials and the intensity with which the site was used. This suggests a pattern of small range size and population fragmentation that may have contributed to the unparalleled linguistic diversity of the wider region.