Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T14:46:39.310Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

New evidence and revised interpretations of early agriculture in Highland New Guinea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2015

Tim Denham ,
Simon Haberle  and
Carol Lentfer
Tim Denham
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, School of Humanities, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide SA 5001, Australia. (Email: [email protected])
Simon Haberle
Affiliation:
Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Program, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia. (Email: [email protected])
Carol Lentfer
Affiliation:
Centre for Geoarchaeology and Palaeoenvironmental Research, School of Environmental Science and Management, Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, Lismore NSW 2480, Australia (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This review of the evidence for early agriculture in New Guinea supported by new data from Kuk Swamp demonstrates that cultivation had begun there by at least 6950–6440 cal BP and probably much earlier. Contrary to previous ideas, the first farming in New Guinea was not owed to SouthEast Asia, but emerged independently in the Highlands. Indeed plants such as the banana were probably first domesticated in New Guinea and later diffused into the Asian continent.

Keywords

Mid-HoloceneNew Guinea HighlandsagricultureMusa bananas
Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 78 , Issue 302 , December 2004 , pp. 839 - 857
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Argent, G.C.G. 1976. The wild bananas of Papua New Guinea, Notes from The Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh 35: 77–114.Google Scholar
Bard, E., Hamelin, B., Fairbanks, R.G. & Zindler, A.. 1990. Calibration of the 14C timescale over the past 30 000 years using mass spectrometric U-Th ages from Barbados, Nature 345: 405–410.Google Scholar
Bayliss-Smith, T. 1996. People-plant interactions in the New Guinea highlands: agricultural hearthland or horticultural backwater? in Harris, D.R. (ed.): 499–523.Google Scholar
Bayliss-Smith, T. & Golson, J.. 1992a. Wetland agriculture in New Guinea Highlands prehistory, in Coles, B. (ed.), The wetland revolution in prehistory: 15–27. Exeter: The Prehistoric Society and Wetland Archaeological Research Project.Google Scholar
Bayliss-Smith, T. & Golson, J.. 1992b. A Colocasian revolution in the New Guinea Highlands?: insights from Phase 4 at Kuk, Archaeology in Oceania 27: 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayliss-Smith, T. & Golson, J.. 1999. The Meaning of Ditches: Deconstructing the Social Landscapes of Drainage in New Guinea, Kuk, Phase 4, in C. Gosden, and Hather, J. (eds.): 199–231.Google Scholar
Bellwood, P. 1996. The origins and spread of agriculture in the Indo-Pacific region: gradualism and diffusion or revolution and colonisation? in Harris, D.R. (ed.): 465–98.Google Scholar
Bellwood, P. 1997. Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Bourke, R.M. 1996. Edible indigenous nuts in Papua New Guinea, in Stevens, M.L., Bourke, R.M. and Evans, B.R. (eds.): 45–55.Google Scholar
Bourke, R.M. 2001. Intensification of agricultural systems in Papua New Guinea, Asia Pacific Viewpoint 42(2–3): 219–236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourke, R.M. n.d. Altitudinal limits of 220 economic crop species in Papua New Guinea. Unpublished manuscript on file at Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (RSPAS), Australian National University (ANU).Google Scholar
Brookfield, H.C. & Hart, D.. 1971. Melanesia. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Bulmer, S. 1975. Settlement and economy in prehistoric Papua New Guinea: a review of the archaeological evidence, Journal de la Société des Océanistes 31(46): 7–75.Google Scholar
Collins, J.F. & Lavney, F.. 1983. Micromorphological changes with advancing pedogenesis in some Irish alluvial soils, in Bullock, P. and Murphy, C.P. (eds.), Soil micromorphology: 297–307. Berkhamstead: AB Academic.Google Scholar
De Langhe, E. & De Maret, P.. 1999. Tracking the banana: its significance in early agriculture, in Gosden, C. and Hather, J. (eds.): 377–96.Google Scholar
Denham, T.P. 2003a. The Kuk morass: multi-disciplinary investigations of early to mid Holocene plant exploitation at Kuk Swamp, Wahgi Valley, Papua New Guinea. Unpublished PhD thesis, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Denham, T.P. 2003b. Archaeological evidence for mid-Holocene agriculture in the interior of Papua New Guinea: a critical review, in Denham, T.P. and Ballard, C. (eds.): 159–76.Google Scholar
Denham, T.P. 2004. Early agriculture in the Highlands of New Guinea: an assessment of Phase 1 (c. 9000 bp) at Kuk Swamp, in Attenbrow, V.J. and Fullagar, R. (eds.), A Pacific Odyssey: archaeology and anthropology in the Western Pacific. Papers in honour of Jim Specht: 47–57 . Records of the Australian Museum Supplement 29, Sydney: Australian Museum.Google Scholar
Denham, T.P. In press. Agricultural origins and the emergence of rectilinear ditch networks in the Highlands of New Guinea, in Pawley, A., Attenbrough, R., Golson, J. and Hide, R. (eds.), Papuan pasts: Studies in the cultural, linguistic and biological history of the Papuan-speaking peoples. Adelaide: Crawford House (to be published late 2004).Google Scholar
Denham, T.P. & Ballard, C. (eds.). 2003. Perspectives on prehistoric agriculture in New Guinea. Archaeology in Oceania Special Issue.Google Scholar
Denham, T.P. & Barton, H.. In press. The emergence of agriculture in New Guinea: continuity from preexisting foraging practices, In Kennett, D.J. and Winterhalder, B. (eds.), Behavioral ecology and the transition to agriculture. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press (to be published late 2004).Google Scholar
Denham, T.P., Haberle, S.G., Lentfer, C., Fullagar, R., Field, J., Therin, M., Porch, N. & Winsborough, B.. 2003. Origins of agriculture at Kuk Swamp in the Highlands of New Guinea. Science 301: 189–193.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dwyer, P.D. & Minnegal, M.. 1991. Hunting in lowland, tropical rain forest: Towards a model of non-agricultural subsistence, Human Ecology 19: 187–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
French, B.R. 1986. Food plants of Papua New Guinea: a compendium. Privately published book.Google Scholar
Gillieson, D., Gorecki, P. & Hope, G.. 1985. Prehistoric agricultural systems in a lowland swamp, Papua New Guinea, Archaeology in Oceania 20: 32–7.Google Scholar
Golson, J. 1976. Archaeology and agricultural history in the New Guinea Highlands, in de G. Sieveking, G., Longworth, I.A. and Wilson, K.E. (eds.), Problems in economic and social archaeology: 201–20. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Golson, J. 1977a. No room at the top: agricultural intensification in the New Guinea Highlands, in Allen, J., Golson, J. and Jones, R. (eds.), Sunda and Sahul: prehistoric studies in southeast Asia, Melanesia and Australia: 601–38. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Golson, J. 1977b. The making of the New Guinea Highlands, in Winslow, J.H. (ed.), The Melanesian environment: 45–56. Canberra: Australian National University Press.Google Scholar
Golson, J. 1977c. Simple tools and complex technology: Agriculture and agricultural implements in the New Guinea Highlands, in Wright, R.V.S. (ed.), Stone tools as cultural markers: change, evolution and complexity: 154–61. New Jersey: Humanities Press Inc.Google Scholar
Golson, J. 1981. New Guinea agricultural history: a case study, in Denoon, D. and Snowden, C. (eds.), A time to plant and a time to uproot: 55–64. Port Moresby: Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies.Google Scholar
Golson, J. 1982. The Ipomoean revolution revisited: society and sweet potato in the upper Wahgi Valley, in Strathern, A. (ed.), Inequality in New Guinea Highland societies: 109–36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Golson, J. 1985. Agricultural origins in Southeast Asia: a view from the east, in Misra, N. and Bellwood, P. (eds.), Recent advances in Indo-Pacific prehistory: 307–14. Leiden: E. J. Bill.Google Scholar
Golson, J. 1989. The origins and development of New Guinea agriculture, in Harris, D.R. and Hillman, G.C. (eds.): 678–87.Google Scholar
Golson, J. 1990. Kuk and the development of agriculture in New Guinea: retrospection and introspection, in Yen, D.E. and Mummery, J.M.J. (eds.), Pacific Production Systems: Approaches to Economic Prehistory: 139–47. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
Golson, J. 1991a. Bulmer Phase II: early agriculture in the New Guinea Highlands, in Pawley, A. (ed.), Man and a half: essays in Pacific anthropology and ethnobiology in honour of Ralph Bulmer: 484–91. Auckland: The Polynesian Society.Google Scholar
Golson, J. 1991b. The New Guinea Highlands on the eve of agriculture, Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 11: 82–91.Google Scholar
Golson, J. 2000. A stone bowl fragment from the Early Middle Holocene of the Upper Wahgi Valley, Western Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea, in Anderson, A. and Murray, T. (eds.), Australian Archaeologist: collected papers in honour of Jim Allen: 231–48. Canberra: Coombs Academic Publishing, ANU.Google Scholar
Golson, J. 2002. Gourds in New Guinea, Asia and the Pacific, in Bedford, S., Sand, C. and Burley, D. (eds.), Fifty years in the field. Essays in honour and celebration of Richard Shutler Jr.’s archaeological career: 69–78. New Zealand Archaeological Journal Monograph 25, Auckland: Auckland Museum.Google Scholar
Golson, J. & Hughes, P.J.. 1980. The appearance of plant and animal domestication in New Guinea, Journal de la Société des Océanistes 36: 294–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gosden, C. & Hather, J. (eds.). 1999. The prehistory of food: appetites for change. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Green, R. 1991. The Lapita cultural complex: current evidence and proposed models, Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 11: 295–305.Google Scholar
Groube, L. 1989. The taming of the rainforests: a model for Late Pleistocene forest exploitation in New Guinea, in Harris, D.R. and Hillman, G.C. (eds.): 292–304.Google Scholar
Groube, L., Chappell, J., Muke, J. & Price, D.. 1986. A 40,000 year-old human occupation site at Huon Peninsula, Papua New Guinea, Nature 324(4): 453–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haberle, S.G. 1993. Late Quaternary environmental history of the Tari Basin, Papua New Guinea. Unpublished PhD thesis, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Haberle, S.G. 1994. Anthropogenic indicators in pollen diagrams: problems and prospects for late Quaternary palynology in New Guinea, in Hather, J. G., ed., Tropical archaeobotany: applications and new developments: 172–201. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Haberle, S.G. 1995. Identification of cultivated Pandanus and Colocasia in pollen records and the implications for the study of early agriculture in New Guinea, Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 4: 195–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haberle, S.G. 1998. Late Quaternary change in the Tari Basin, Papua New Guinea, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 137: 1–24.Google Scholar
Haberle, S.G., Hope, G.S. & De Fretes, Y.. 1991. Environmental change in the Baliem Valley, Montane Irian Jaya, Republic of Indonesia, Journal of Biogeography 18: 25–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haberle, S.G., Hope, G.S., & Van Der Kaars, S.. 2001. Biomass burning in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea: natural and human induced fire events in the fossil record, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 171: 259–268.Google Scholar
Harlan, J. 1995. The living field: our agricultural heritage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Harris, D.R. 1995. Early agriculture in New Guinea and the Torres Strait divide, Antiquity 69 (Special Number 265): 848–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, D.R. 1996. The origins and spread of agriculture and pastoralism in Eurasia: anGoogle Scholar
Harris, D.R. (ed.). 1996. The origins and spread of agriculture and pastoralism in Eurasia. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Harris, D.R. & Hillman, G.C. (eds.). 1989. Foraging and Farming: the evolution of plant exploitation. London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Harris, E.C. 1977. Hed mound: a New Guinea house site. Unpublished manuscript on file at RSPAS, ANU.Google Scholar
Harris, E.C. & Hughes, P.J.. 1978. An early agricultural system at Mugumamp Ridge, Western Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea, Mankind 11 (4): 437–45.Google Scholar
Haywood, M. 1985. Soil development in Flandrian landscapes: River Severn case-study, in Boardman, J. (ed.), Soils and Quaternary landscape evolution: 281–99. Chichester: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Hope, G.S. 1983. The vegetational changes of the last 20,000 years at Telefomin, Papua New Guinea, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 4: 25–33.Google Scholar
Hope, G.S. & Golson, J.. 1995. Late Quaternary change in the mountains of New Guinea, Antiquity 69 (Special Number 265): 818–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hope, J.H. & Hope, G.S.. 1976. Palaeoenvironments for man in New Guinea, in Kirk, R.L. and Thorne, A.G. (eds.), The Biological Origins of the Australians: 29–54. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies Publication.Google Scholar
Hughes, P.J., Sullivan, M.E. & Yok, D.. 1991. Human induced erosion in a Highlands catchment in Papua New Guinea: the prehistoric and contemporary records, Zeitschrift für Geomorphologie Suppl. 83: 227–39.Google Scholar
Kirch, P.V. 1989. Second millenium B.C. aboriculture in Melanesia: archaeological evidence from the Mussau Islands, Economic Botany 43(2): 225–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lebot, V. 1999. Biomolecular evidence for plant domestication in Sahul, Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 46: 619–28.Google Scholar
Loy, T., Spriggs, M. & Wickler, S.. 1992. Direct evidence for human use of plants 28,000 years ago: starch residues on stone artefacts from northern Solomon Islands, Antiquity 66: 898–912.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matthews, P.J. 1991. A possible wild type taro: Colocasia esculenta var. aquatalis, Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association Bulletin 11: 69–81.Google Scholar
Matthews, P.J. 1995. Aroids and Austronesians, Tropics 4 (2): 105–26.Google Scholar
Matthews, P.J. 2003a. Identification of Benincasa hispida (wax gourd) from the Kana archaeological site, Western Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea, in Denham, T.P. and Ballard, C. (eds.): 186–91.Google Scholar
Matthews, P.J. 2003b. Taro planthoppers (Tarophagus spp.) in Australia and the origins of taro (Colocasia esculenta) in Oceania, in Denham, T.P. and Ballard, C. (eds.): 192–202.Google Scholar
Mbida, C.M., Doutrelepont, H., Vrydaghs, L., Swennen, R.L., Swennen, R.J., Beeckman, H., De Langhe, E. & De Maret, P.. 2001. First archaeological evidence of banana cultivation in central Africa during the third millennium before present, Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 10: 1–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mbida, C.M., Van Neer, W., Doutrelepont, H. & Vrydaghs, L.. 2000. Evidence for banana cultivation and animal husbandry during the first millennium BC in the forest of Southern Cameroon, Journal of Archaeological Science 27: 151–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mcalpine, J.R., Keig, G. & Falls, R.. 1983. Climate of Papua New Guinea. Canberra: CSIRO and ANU Press.Google Scholar
Mountain, M.J. 1991. Highland New Guinea hunter-gatherers: the evidence of Nombe Rockshelter, Simbu, with emphasis on the Pleistocene. Unpublished PhD thesis, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Muke, J. & Mandui, H.. 2003. Shadows of Kuk: evidence for prehistoric agriculture at Kana, Wahgi Valley, Papua New Guinea, in Denham, T.P. and Ballard, C. (eds.): 177–85.Google Scholar
Pain, C.F., Pigram, C.J., Blong, R.J. & Arnold, G.O.. 1987. Cainozoic geology and geomorphology of the Wahgi Valley, central highlands of Papua New Guinea, BMR Journal of Australian Geology and Geophysics 10: 267–75.Google Scholar
Powell, J.M. 1970a. The history of agriculture in the New Guinea Highlands, Search 1(5): 199–200.Google Scholar
Powell, J.M. 1970b. The impact of man on the vegetation of the Mount Hagen region, New Guinea. Unpublished PhD thesis, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Powell, J.M. 1976. Ethnobotany, in Paijmans, K. (ed.), New Guinea vegetation: 106–83. Canberra: CSIRO and ANU Press.Google Scholar
Powell, J.M. 1980. Studies of New Guinea vegetation history, Proceedings of the IVth International Palynology Conference, Lucknow (1976–7) 3: 11–20.Google Scholar
Powell, J.M. 1981. The origins of agriculture in New Guinea, Proceedings of the IVth International Palynology Conference, Lucknow (1976–7) 3: 295–310.Google Scholar
Powell, J.M. 1982a. Plant resources and palaeobotanical evidence for plant use in the Papua New Guinea Highlands, Archaeology in Oceania 17: 28–37.Google Scholar
Powell, J.M. 1982b. The history of plant use and man’s impact on the vegetation, in Gressitt, J.L. (ed.), Biogeography and ecology of New Guinea. Volume 1: 207–27. The Hague: Junk.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powell, J.M. 1984. Ecological and palaeoecological studies at Kuk I: below the grey clay. Unpublished manuscript on file at RSPAS, ANU.Google Scholar
Powell, J.M. & Harrison, S.. 1982. Haiyapugua: aspects of Huli subsistence and swamp cultivation. Port Moresby: Department of Geography, UPNG (Occasional Paper No. 1, New Series).Google Scholar
Powell, J.M., Kulunga, A., Moge, R., Pono, C., Zimike, F. & Golson, J.. 1975. Agricultural traditions in the Mount Hagen area. Port Moresby: Department of Geography, UPNG (Occasional Paper No. 12).Google Scholar
Richerson, P.J., Boyd, R. & Bettinger, R.L.. 2001. Was agriculture impossible during the Pleistocene but mandatory during the Holocene? A climate change hypothesis, American Antiquity 66(3): 387–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roscoe, P. 2002. The hunters and gatherers of New Guinea, Current Anthropology 43(1): 153–62.Google Scholar
Sauer, C.O. 1952. Agricultural origins and their dispersals. New York: American Geographical Society.Google Scholar
Simmonds, N.W. 1962. The evolution of the bananas. London: Longmans.Google Scholar
Smith, B.D. 1998. The emergence of agriculture. New York: Scientific American Library.Google Scholar
Spriggs, M. 1996. Early agriculture and what went before in Island Melanesia: continuity or intrusion? in Harris, D.R. (ed.): 524–37.Google Scholar
Spriggs, M. 2001. Who cares what time it is? The importance of chronology in Pacific archaeology, in Anderson, A., Lilley, I. and O’Connor, S. (eds.), Histories of old ages: essays in honour of Rhys Jones: 237–49. Canberra: Pandanus Books, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Stevens, M.L., Bourke, R.M. & Evans, B.R. (eds.). South Pacific indigenous nuts. Canberra: ACIAR.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M & Reimer, P.J.. 1993. Extended 14C database and revised CALIB radiocarbon calibration program, Radiocarbon 35:215–230.Google Scholar
Swadling, P., Araho, N. & Ivuyo, B.. 1991. Settlements associated with the inland Sepik-Ramu Sea, Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 11: 92–110.Google Scholar
Terrell, J.E. 2002. Tropical agroforestry, coastal lagoons and Holocene prehistory in Greater Near Oceania, in Shuji, Y. and Matthews, P.J. (eds.), Proceedings of the International Area Studies Conference VII: vegeculture in Eastern Asia and Oceania: 195–216. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.Google Scholar
Terrell, J.E., Hart, J.P., Barut, S., Cellinese, N., Curet, A., Denham, T.P., Haines, H., Kusimba, C.M., Latinis, K., Oka, R., Palka, J., Pohl, M.E.D., Pope, K.O., Staller, J.E. & Williams, P.R.. 2003. Domesticated landscapes: the subsistence ecology of plant and animal domestication, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 10(4): 323–68.Google Scholar
Terrell, J.E. & Welsch, R.. 1997. Lapita and the temporal geography of prehistory, Antiquity 71: 548–72.Google Scholar
Wilson, S.M. 1985. Phytolith evidence from Kuk, an early agricultural site in New Guinea, Archaeology in Oceania 20: 90–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yen, D.E. 1991. Polynesian cultigens and cultivars: the questions of origin, in Cox, P.A. and Banack, S.A. (eds.), Islands, plants and Polynesians: an introduction to Pacific ethnobotany: 67–95. Portland: Dioscorides Press.Google Scholar
Yen, D.E. 1995. The development of Sahul agriculture with Australia as bystander, Antiquity 69, Special Number 265: 831–47.Google Scholar
Yen, D.E. 1996. Melanesian aboriculture: historical perspectives with emphasis on the genus Canarium , in Stevens, M.L., Bourke, R.M. and Evans, B.R. (eds.): 36–44.Google Scholar
Yen, D.E. 1998. Subsistence to commerce in Pacific agriculture: some four thousand years of plant exchange, in Pendergast, H.D.V., Etkin, N.L., Harris, D.R. and Houghton, P.J. (eds.), Plants for food and medicine: 161–83. Kew: Royal Botanic Gardens.Google Scholar