The loneliness of an obsidian source in southwest Manus

Of two obsidian source areas in the Admiralty Islands (Manus Province, Papua New Guinea), only the Lou‐Pam Islands source has a well‐established place in archaeological distributions both local and regional. From the other source area in southwest Manus Island, many sites have been recorded following their exposure by bulldozers. These sites contain retouched obsidian point fragments like those from the Emsin workshop site excavated on Lou Island. Comparison of the two sets confirms the close similarity. The evidence suggests that manufacture and use are both represented in the southwest Manus collection and, since the only point fragment so far analysed derives from Lou, that material from both sources was being used. A review of the ethnographic evidence suggests that the regional integrative network in the past might not have distinguished obsidian by source as strongly as in the period of ethnographic description.