Mainland magic: Interpreting cultural influences across Cape York–Torres Strait

Torres Strait is a fertile ground for anthropological and archaeological research on the historical movement of people and trade and exchange between the two large land masses that today constitute Papua New Guinea to the north and the Australian mainland to the south. We argue that research that focuses on tangible, material items of exchange tends to privilege ‘north-to-south’ flows and that consideration of non-material elements may present a very different picture of prehistoric human movement and social interaction in the region. While tangible ‘goods’ may have been the principal items moving amongst localized networks of exchange, the power of mainland Australian ritual specialists may have been a driver for long-distance exchange.