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Nancy L. Sullivan, Ph.D. FI ‘06

Nancy Sullivan has been living and working in Papua New Guinea for twenty-three years, studying some of the country’s most isolated societies in previously unexplored geographical areas. As an anthropologist deeply involved with development issues, she believes in preserving the traditional culture of these isolated communities and has encouraged them to become the guardians of their territories’ biodiversity and their archaeological heritage.

For the last four years, Dr. Sullivan has been dedicated to a major project to document cave art along the high, inaccessible, precipitous cliffs on the northern side of the Central Range as it descends to the Sepik River at the head of the Arafundi and Karawari Rivers. This project, which was initially sponsored by a Guggenheim grant, and then by The National Geographic Society exploration grants, is recording what may be the largest cave art system in the southern hemisphere, consisting of 300 or more caves decorated with stencils and human remains. These caves are the heritage of three language groups, one of which still occupies the caves and all of which still depend upon the surrounding rainforest. Dr. Sullivan’s work aims to establish the caves as natural cultural property, not only recognizing their importance in the history of Papua New Guinea, but also helping numerous landowners secure their lands against sundry threats from illegal and legal timber and mining concessions.

In 2010, Nancy Sullivan & Associates, an ethnographic consulting company, has been able to pay school fees for children in three villages, provide for prospective local teachers, and deliver solar panels for two communities.