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| Kilu Cave | |
|---|---|
| Name | Kilu Cave |
| Location | Manus Province, Papua New Guinea |
| Geology | Limestone, volcanic tuff |
| Discovered | 20th century |
| Access | Restricted |
Kilu Cave is a limestone cave system located in Manus Province, Papua New Guinea, noted for its stratified deposits that have yielded important archaeology and paleontology evidence about human colonization, megafauna extinctions, and Holocene environmental change. The site has attracted research from teams affiliated with institutions such as the Australian National University, the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Papua New Guinea, and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and has been compared in significance to field sites like Niah Cave, Lake Mungo, Huagapo Cave, and Tabon Cave.
Kilu Cave lies on Manus Island in the Admiralty Islands archipelago within Manus Province, northeast of the island of New Guinea and northwest of the Solomon Sea, positioned near coastal karst topography, mangrove fringes, and reef systems that connect to the Bismarck Sea and the Coral Triangle. The regional setting includes nearby settlements and administrative centers such as Lorengau and historical sites like Admiralty Islands campaign locations, and the cave’s coordinates place it within the biogeographic province studied by teams from the Australian Museum, the University of Hawaiʻi, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
The cave is developed within a sequence of coral-limestone and volcanic tuff with karstification influenced by Pleistocene sea-level fluctuations tied to events recorded in the Last Glacial Maximum and the Holocene. Speleothems, flowstones, and breccia horizons in the cave have been dated using methods associated with laboratories at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, the Radiocarbon Laboratory at Waikato University, and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, enabling correlation with isotopic records from Ice cores and marine sediment cores linked to the Australasian region. Structural features include solutional chambers, collapse dolines, and fossil passages comparable to those mapped in Jenolan Caves and Mount Gambier karst systems.
Excavations have produced stratified cultural deposits containing lithic artifacts, shell middens, bone assemblages, and charcoal that inform debates about human dispersal in Near Oceania and interactions with endemic fauna such as giant rodents and extinct megafauna. Finds have been analyzed in the context of models advanced by researchers at the Australian National University, the University of Cambridge, the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, and the National Museum of the Philippines, and compared with assemblages from Niah Cave, Lake Mungo, Tabon Cave, Huagapo Cave, Kuk Swamp and Palau. Radiocarbon and uranium-series dates have been used alongside genetic studies from groups at Harvard University, University College London, and the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA to test scenarios of early human arrival, subsistence strategies, and the timing of extinctions that parallel research into the Late Quaternary megafauna extinctions seen in regions like Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands.
The cave region sits within the traditional territories of Manus peoples and has been integrated into oral histories and customary practices studied by anthropologists from the University of Papua New Guinea, the Australian National University, and the School of Oriental and African Studies. Ethnographic work links ritual use and material culture in the Manus Islands to broader Oceanic traditions documented by scholars at the Peabody Museum, the British Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, and the American Museum of Natural History. Colonial-era contact histories involving missions, traders, and military campaigns such as the Admiralty Islands campaign affected settlement patterns near the cave and are referenced in archives at the National Archives of Australia, the National Archives of Papua New Guinea, and the United States National Archives.
The cave’s environs form part of a landscape mosaic that supports coastal and lowland rainforest species, endemic rodents, bats, and invertebrates studied by teams from the Australian Museum, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Faunal remains recovered include taxa comparable to extant and extinct species cataloged in collections at the American Museum of Natural History, the Natural History Museum, London, and the Australian National Wildlife Collection, and contribute to biogeographic discussions involving Wallacean and Sahulian exchange documented by researchers at Museum Victoria and the Queensland Museum. The surrounding marine habitats connect to reef biodiversity studies undertaken by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, the University of the South Pacific, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Management of the site involves coordination among provincial authorities, customary landowners, and research institutions such as the University of Papua New Guinea, the Australian National University, the Smithsonian Institution, and international funding bodies like the Australian Research Council and the National Geographic Society. Conservation concerns intersect with projects by organizations including the Conservation International, the World Wildlife Fund, and the IUCN that address threats from development, looting, and climate-driven sea-level rise paralleling regional planning frameworks at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and policy work at the Papua New Guinea Department of Environment and Conservation. Academic stewardship models applied to the cave have involved collaborations with museums such as the National Museum and Art Gallery (Papua New Guinea), the Australian Museum, and the British Museum for curation, repatriation discussions, and community-based heritage programs.
Category:Caves of Papua New Guinea Category:Archaeological sites in Oceania