Domesticatory relationships in the New Guinea Highlands

Abstract

Several characteristics of cultivation practices in the highlands are significant for understanding the emergence of early agricultural practices. Foremost for interpreting the multidisciplinary record, it is important to consider the range of subsistence practices across New Guinea today, with similar variability likely to have characterised the past (Bourke and Harwood 2009; Denham 2011). Despite this diversity, cultivation practices across New Guinea are, and are likely to have always been, predominantly vegetative. The effects of prolonged vegetative propagation on different plants, including what might be termed domestication traits, are poorly understood in the New Guinea context, as well as elsewhere globally. These themes are briefly reviewed here with respect to plant phenology and some of the most important traditional food plants in the highlands.