Precontact movement among Eivo and Simeku speakers in central Bougainville

Anthropologists, many of whom purport to describe traditional societies, have given little attention to movement behaviour among groups other than hunters and gatherers, nomads and pastoralists. The great emphasis on patterns of post-marital residence in studies of the precolonial condition of tribal and peasant societies implies that all agriculturalists are sedentary (see Fox 1967:77–96; Keesing 1976:242–265; Murdock 1949:79–90). Where population movement is addressed (eg. Murdock and Wilson 1972:255–265), the dominant assumption is that residence groups transfer as a unit.