It is believed that PNG was originally inhabited by settlers from Asia over 50,000 years ago. There is evidence of human settlement in West New Britain about 35,000 years ago.
For many thousands of years, the north coast of
WNB was an important trade centre in the Western Pacific. Obsidian,
a black volcanic glass used in place of metal, was mined in various sites around
Talasea and Mopir (inland from Hoskins). This obsidian was widely distributed throughout the
Pacific from 20,000 years ago up to the recent past. This is the oldest
evidence in the world for long distance marine transport of materials by humans.
From
10,000 to 3,600 years ago the inhabitants of West New Britain were highly
mobile. They hunted and gathered wild foods but also cultivated stands of
nut trees and tubers. About 3,600 years ago, they witnessed one of the most massive volcanic eruptions ever to occur during human
history. Mt Witori, inland from Hoskins, blew its top off in an eruption
which lasted many years, and dispersed volcanic ash which destroyed everything for hundreds of
kilometres around the volcano. Areas covered by Witori
ash would have had all plant life destroyed. People as far away as Talasea would have been
forced to leave the area or face starvation. The area would have been
uninhabitable for many years.
Little is known about the people who returned to the Talasea
area but there is evidence that they made Lapita style pottery. Lapita Pottery is identified by the style of decoration and
that found around Talasea dates from 3,000 to 2,000 years ago. At the same time
as people were returning to the northern coast of West New Britain, groups bearing Lapita Pottery were beginning to settle some of the remote islands of the
Pacific for the first time – places like Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. Designs on the
pottery are similar throughout this large area, suggesting that the people who
decorated the pots may have been in regular contact. Obsidian was being traded
as far away as Sabah, Eastern Indonesia, to Tonga and Samoa in the West - an area stretching
7,000 kilometres. This represents the most extensive prehistoric trading
network known anywhere in the world. By this time people were depending heavily on cultivated plants and were living in small hamlets or villages most of
the year.
The first European contact was by the Portuguese explorer Jorge de Menses in 1526-1527 who named it Ilhas dos Papuas, referring to the fuzzy hair of the inhabitants. Inigo Ortiz de Retes, a Spanish visitor, later called it New Guinea because he thought the people similar to those of Guinea in Africa. In 1700, English explorer William Dampier sailed the straight between New Britain and Morobe Province on the main island of PNG, naming New Britain’s most western point Cape Gloucester.
The Islands region was one of the first areas of PNG to be visited by these early European explorers because of its strategic position on the seventeenth century shipping routes between South America and Asia.
In the nineteenth century Germany established interests on New Britain, particularly in the Gazelle Peninsula of East New Britain. In the late 1800s the Dutch claimed sovereignty over the western part of New Guinea Island while Britain annexed the remainder. The capital of German New Guinea was Rabaul, on the island of New Britain.
In 1906, British New Guinea became Papua and administration was taken over by the recently independent Australia. With the outbreak of World War 1, Australia also took control of German New Guinea. Between the World Wars agriculture and forestry were major industries in WNB and railway infrastructure was built in some locations to improve the production and export process. At Ulamona, a sawmill was supplied with logs from the interior by means of a heavy tramline, while a light tramline carried wood from the mill to the jetty. There were several 2' 6" tracks in operation at Lindenhafen Plantation for the transport of copra until at least the mid-fifties and the track itself was not finally removed until 1979. No operating railways remain in PNG.
During the Second World
War much of the northern part of New Guinea Island and the Islands Region,
including the whole of West New Britain, fell
to the Japanese. In December 1943, allied troops invaded the Arowe and
Gloucester areas and by the time of the Japanese surrender in September 1945,
the allies controlled most of the Province. WNB is home to many war wrecks
as a result of the Japanese occupation and the allied bombings. Post-war, the eastern half of New Guinea Island became the
Australian Territory of Papua New Guinea. In 1963 Indonesia took control of
Dutch New Guinea, incorporating the western half of the New Guinea island into
the Indonesian state as Irian Jaya. PNG was granted self-government in 1973 and
full independence achieved on 16 September 1975.
