Five Centuries of Settlement Dynamics and Mobility in the Northern Raja Ampat Islands of West Papua

We explore changes to settlement and mobility in the northern Raja Ampat Islands (Waigeo, Gam, and Batanta) over the past five centuries, a time when speakers of several Austronesian languages were moving throughout the archipelago. The evidence shows: (1) some settlement relocations were rapid, occurring within a generation, while other settlements remained fixed for hundreds of years; and (2) there were numerous clan and family scale movements that led to high levels of intermarriage between language groups and settlements. The results demonstrate that far from being a place of stasis caught between the worlds of Maluku and New Guinea, Raja Ampat settlement and mobility were highly dynamic. This dynamism prompts us to rethink the relationship between today’s settlement locations, their language affiliations, and the meta-narratives about their recent population histories. We propose that the deeper past of Raja Ampat may have also been characterized by dynamic movement and social flux.