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Generally, the Austronesian speaking settlers only spread along the northern coastline
on the tip of South East Papua and around the islands near them, as shown at Neolithic
Sites in Raja Ampat, Kepala Burung, Manokwari, Biak, Yapen and Sentani (Simanjuntak
et al., 2012a). Skoumabo Cave located near the highway connecting Abepura and Skow
Village near PNG border is also part of this (Mahmud, 2011). On the south-eastern coast, the
evidence of their spread is seen in the cave paintings in the archaeological sites in Kaimana
and the gulf of Berau. It was assumed that the Austronesian speaking dwellers came into
this area around 3,000 years ago (Simanjuntak, 1998). The existence of paintings depicting
ships and other tools made of metal in Indonesia indicated that some of those paintings
were created by the Austronesian speaking dwellers, and some others were made by the
descendants of the indigenous Melanesians.
Another migration route in the east was from Maluku to the Bismarck Islands. It was
estimated that this was used around 3,500 years ago (Arifin and Delanghe, 2004). From
there, migrations continued to the islands in Melanesia the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New
Caledonia, and onward to Fiji and further east to Polynesia. From Bismarck Island, some
of the settlers migrated to southern Papua and Papua New Guinea. The Austronesians
demonstrated adaptive behavior during their migration to the Pacific. They enriched
the original cultures by developing new cultures which were well-suited to the Pacific
environment. This culture is known as Lapita. The Lapita culture is characterized by the
existence of open dwelling places with square, stilt houses, food and vegetable collecting
activities, and also the domestication of pigs, chickens, and dogs. The population
consumed betel nut; they made earthen ceramics, axes, and jewelry made of clamshells;
and they spoke some ancestral form of Austronesian (Kirch, 1996, Spriggs, 1999).
Abundant Lapita earthen-ware ceramics have been discovered in various archaeological
sites and are considered to provide convincing proof of the existence of the Austronesian
speaking population. The development and enrichment of past cultures are depicted in the
existence of anthropomorphic ornaments, and human figures portrayed in Lapita ceramics
which previously had been discovered in the eastern part of Indonesia (Tanudirjo, 2011).
Other developments included serration technique of ornamentation which had existed
earlier in Kalumpang and red-ribbon pitchers in Halmahera (Simanjuntak et al., 2012a). If
traced farther back, the Lapita earthen pitcher was similar to what was called the Magapit
earthen pitcher in the Philippines. The existence of non-earthen ceramics, such as tools
made of clamshells, ornaments, and axes made of stones and clamshells in east Indonesia
were similar to those found in Lapita Sites in the Bismarck Islands added to the evidence.

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