Plant Resources and Palaeobotanical Evidence for Plant Use in the Papua New Guinea Highlands

Early and mid Holocene tool-use and processing of taro (Colocasia esculenta), yam (Dioscorea sp.) and other plants at Kuk Swamp in the highlands of Papua New Guinea

“…Stone and wooden pounding tools were also used to mash tubers. Ethnographic accounts of food and plant processing provide direct analogues for interpreting the function of archaeological stone artefacts [70,71]. Studies also show that ethnographic tools now in museum collections do bear starch granules (e.g.…”

“…[71,84]). In particular, there was no information on root-crops, which are the staple crops of agriculture in the Highlands today.…”

Ethnoarchaeology: The need for a post‐mortem enquiry

“…The Wahgi valley is part of the central Cordillera of New Guinea where massive humanlyinduced vegetation changes have occurred over more than 5000 years (Hope and Hope 1976;Powell 1982;Hope et al 1983), transforming a forested environment into permanent grasslands sustaining a large population of virtually sedentarised horticulturalists.…”

Circumscription Theory of the Origins of the State: A Cross-Cultural Re-Analysis

“…Nevertheless, no states arose as a result of this. This is actually a paradox that most saliently appears in the New Guinea Highlands, a densely populated territory with five or six thousand year long history of agricultural occupation (e.g., Golson & Hughes 1980;Powell 1982;Shnirel'man 1989: 143145). Many groups existed there for long periods in the situation of both environmental and social circumscription, but no chiefdoms, let alone states, seem to have appeared there before 1975 when the state of Papua New Guinea appeared.…”