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In this book, historical narratives chart how people created forms of agriculture in the highlands of New Guinea and how these practices were transformed through time. The intention is twofold: to clearly establish New Guinea as a region of early agricultural development and plant domestication; and, to develop a contingent, practice-based interpretation of early agriculture that has broader application to other regions of the world.
The multi-disciplinary record from the highlands has the potential to challenge and change long held assumptions regarding early agriculture globally, which are usually based on domestication. Early agriculture in the highlands is charted by an exposition of the practices of plant exploitation and cultivation. Practices are ontologically prior because they ultimately produce the phenotypic and genotypic changes in plant species characterised as domestication, as well as the social and environmental transformations associated with agriculture. They are also methodologically prior because they emplace plants in specific historico-geographic contexts.
Autorentext
Dr Tim Denham is Reader/Associate Professor of Archaeology at the Australian National University. He has undertaken fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, mostly in the highland interior, since 1990. His primary research has focussed on plant exploitation and the emergence of agriculture in the highlands during the Holocene. He has also published on the Holocene histories of Island Southeast Asia and northern Australia. Over the last decade, his interests have diversified to include: the domestication of vegetatively propagated crops, especially bananas; geoarchaeology and environmental change, mainly in the wet tropics; and, the application of new technologies to archaeological questions.
Inhalt
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES
LIST OF TABLES
FOREWORD
ACKNOWLDGEMENTS
* PART I. RETHINKING EARLY AGRICULTURE
CHAPTER 1. EARLY AGRICULTURE IN THE HIGHLANDS: AN UNEXPECTED STORY Why is early agriculture in New Guinea contentious?
A focus on practices
CHAPTER 2. DEFINING EARLY AGRICULTURE IN NEW GUINEA A continuum of human-environment interactions
Low-level food production and the 'middle-ground'
Social dependence and environmental transformation
The conditions of growth: A post-processual turn?
Towards a contingent conception of early agriculture * Articulating space and place
Domains, transformative mechanisms and archaeological expression
Temporalities of associated phenomena
Clarification of terminology
* PART II. PLACES, PRACTICES AND PLANTS
CHAPTER 3. THE IMPORTANCE OF PLACE Ages of discovery
Archaeological frames of reference
An introduction to highland environments
CHAPTER 4. CULTIVATION PRACTICES IN THE HIGHLANDS A vegetative disposition
Diversity of plant exploitation in New Guinea
Practices of cultivation * Plot clearance
Ground preparation and earthworks
Raised beds
Ditches
Terraces * Planting, weeding and harvesting
Fallowing and nutrient cycling
Types of plot
Tools of cultivation
Higher-intensity practices
Bundling practices in time and place
Transposing plants and practices
Transformation through time
CHAPTER 5. THE PLANTS OF HIGHLAND CULTIVATION Domesticatory relationships, degrees of domestication and cultivation mosaics
Loss of sex in vegetatively propagated plants
Hypothetical domestication scenarios for the highlands
Crop plants in the highlands * Staple Crops
Taro (Colocasia esculenta)
Yams (Dioscorea spp.)
Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum)
Other traditional staples
Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas)
Manioc, or cassava (Manihot esculenta) * Vegetables
Edible cane grasses (pitpit)
Winged bean (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus)
Gourds * Nut and fruit trees
Pandanus - karuka (Pandanus julianettii/iwen/brosimos complex) and marita (Pandanus conoideus)
Archaeobotanical visibility of vegetative domestication and cultivation *
PART III. PRACTICES IN THE PAST
CHAPTER 6: EXPLOITING DIVERSITY IN THE PLEISTOCENE To Sahul
Archaeological traces
Palaeoecological inference
Not just trees and tubers ... * Pandanus* species in the highlands
More than hunting and the seasonal exploitation of *Pandanus
Common practices in diverse contexts
CHAPTER 7: AMBIGUITIES OF PRACTICE DURING THE EARLY HOLOCENE Multidisciplinary evidence at Kuk, c. 10,000 years ago * A gap, patch or plot on the wetland margin?
People's use of plants
Transitional steps to cultivation
A novel form of plant exploitation
CHAPTER 8. THE EMERGENCE OF SHIFTING CULTIVATION What are we looking for?
Is there a neolithic signature? * Ground stone axe-adzes
Tanged blades
Stone mortars, pestles and figurines
From patch to plot: the transition to cultivation
CHAPTER 9. THE ADOPTION OF MOUND CULTIVATION DURING THE MID HOLOCENE Dramatic deforestation in the Upper Wahgi Valley
The archaeological evidence for mound cultivation at Kuk * Palaeoenvironments within cultivated plots
Multidisciplinary consilience
The purpose of mounds
A later development
Summary of agronomic innovation
CHAPTER 10. THE DIGGING OF DRAINAGE DITCHES DURING THE LATE HOLOCENE Drainage ditches in the highlands
The Tambul spade
The archaeological sequence of early ditches at Kuk * Chronology
Ditch complexes
Artificiality
The emergence of rectilinear field systems
Minjigina
Haeapugua
Kana
Wooden tools
Cultivation of drains
Planting seed in a vegetative world
Social transformations in the highlands * Ditches and sedentism
Group identity, territoriality and inscription
Some thoughts on timing and causation
CHAPTER 11. LATER INNOVATIONS, INTRODUCTIONS AND ADOPTIONS Tillage
Formalisation of ditch networks
The introduction of animal domesticates from Island Southeast Asia
Plant introductions from Island Southeast Asia * Casuarina* tree-fallowing
Ethnography, ethnohistory and local-scale exchange: A Kalam case study
Sweet potato, pigs and big men
Why adopt?
* PART IV. TAKING A BROADER VIEW
CHAPTER 12. HISTORICAL RESILIENCE OF AGRICULTURE IN THE HIGHLANDS Learning from the past
Agricultural sustainability
Crop diversity and improvement
Adapting to climate change
Making social sense
A look to the future
CHAPTER 13. THE GLOBAL SIGNIFICANCE OF EARLY AGRICULTURE ON NEW GUINEA Telling a story from the margins
Is New Guinea unique within the Asia-Pacific region?
Plant exploitation in the tropics is different
The search for origins: a regulative idea
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX