After a group of archaeologists was taken hostage, researchers are looking to beef up security and reassess risk.
Bryce Barker , who was held hostage by an armed group in Papua New Guinea for more than a week, is escorted from a plane after his release.Scientists in Australia say fieldwork and international research collaboration in Papua New Guinea are in jeopardy after four members of an archaeological expedition were kidnapped in the highlands region of the country last month.
Papua New Guinea is an important location for research in many disciplines, including archaeology, palaeontology, geology and the life sciences, and the incident is causing concern among scientists who had intended to carry out fieldwork in the country. Palaeontologist Gavin Prideaux at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, postponed a planned 2022 field trip to fossil sites in Papua New Guinea because of political unrest during the national elections.
The kidnapping could affect a project he’s involved in with colleagues at the University of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby. They have been working on the Papuan coast studying an extinct group of hominins called the Denisovans, and are seeking funding for further research in the area, including training local students in archaeology and palaeoanthropology. The project is to be led by Jason Kariwiga, a PhD student from Papua New Guinea who is currently based at the University of Queensland.
He has contacted security companies to enquire about the cost of personnel to accompany the fieldwork teams and to monitor their safety on a daily basis. “We now need to factor these sort of things in,” he says. “If we don’t, I can imagine the university would probably feel uncomfortable about supporting a team like that going into that sort of region.”contacted several Australian universities that send researchers to Papua New Guinea.
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