The Antiquity of Agriculture

Abstract

The antiquity and transformation of agriculture in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea have been a focus of archaeological and paleoecological inquiry since the late 1950s, soon after the region was opened up for academic research. Initially, questions centered on unraveling the history of cultivation in the Highlands before the advent of the South American sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), which, despite its contemporary importance to local agriculture, is generally considered to have been introduced to the Spice Islands by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century and subse-quently spread via trade networks into the Highlands of New Guinea. Between the mid-1960s and the late 1970s, it became apparent that agriculture has been practiced for considerably longer than initially was believed, beginning at some time between 8000 and 5000 BCE. These interpretations were based on direct archaeological evi-dence of former cultivation and wetland drainage and manipulation, and on indirect paleoecological and geomorphological evidence of forest clearance and soil erosion, respectively, associated with agriculture. Show more