Farming in New Guinea
Drainage ditches in a highland swamp show independent agriculture from around 7000 BCE.
- When
- Known to
- ± 500 years
- Era
- Neolithic, Holocene
Kuk Swamp in the Papua New Guinea highlands preserves mounds, ditches and drainage channels dug to manage water for cultivating taro, yam and banana, with the earliest phase around 7000 BCE. It is one of the few undisputed independent centres of agricultural origin, and the source of the banana — now one of the most widely grown crops in the world. New Guinea farms for nine thousand years without ever adopting cereals or livestock.