Food and Agriculture in Papua New Guinea
Food and Agriculture in Papua New Guinea

Author: R. Michael Bourke

Publisher: ANU E Press

Published: 2009-08-01

Total Pages: 665

ISBN-13: 1921536616

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Agriculture dominates the rural economy of Papua New Guinea (PNG). More than five million rural dwellers (80% of the population) earn a living from subsistence agriculture and selling crops in domestic and international markets. Many aspects of agriculture in PNG are described in this data-rich book. Topics include agricultural environments in which crops are grown; production of food crops, cash crops and animals; land use; soils; demography; migration; the macro-economic environment; gender issues; governance of agricultural institutions; and transport. The history of agriculture over the 50 000 years that PNG has been occupied by humans is summarised. Much of the information presented is not readily available within PNG. The book contains results of many new analyses, including a food budget for the entire nation. The text is supported by 165 tables and 215 maps and figures.

Tracing Early Agriculture in the Highlands of New Guinea
Tracing Early Agriculture in the Highlands of New Guinea

Author: Tim Denham

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-06-28

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 1351115286

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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.

Ten Thousand Years of Cultivation at Kuk Swamp in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea
Ten Thousand Years of Cultivation at Kuk Swamp in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea

Author: Jack Golson

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781760461157

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Kuk is a settlement at c. 1600 m altitude in the upper Wahgi Valley of the Western Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea, near Mount Hagen, the provincial capital. The site forms part of the highland spine that runs for more than 2500 km from the western head of the island of New Guinea to the end of its eastern tail. Until the early 1930s, when the region was first explored by European outsiders, it was thought to be a single, uninhabited mountain chain. Instead, it was found to be a complex area of valleys and basins inhabited by large populations of people and pigs, supported by the intensive cultivation of the tropical American sweet potato on the slopes above swampy valley bottoms. With the end of World War II, the area, with others, became a focus for the development of coffee and tea plantations, of which the establishment of Kuk Research Station was a result. Large-scale drainage of the swamps produced abundant evidence in the form of stone axes and preserved wooden digging sticks and spades for their past use in cultivation. Investigations in 1966 at a tea plantation in the upper Wahgi Valley by a small team from The Australian National University yielded a date of over 2000 years ago for a wooden stick collected from the bottom of a prehistoric ditch. The establishment of Kuk Research Station a few kilometres away shortly afterwards provided an ideal opportunity for a research project.

The Origins And Spread Of Agriculture And Pastoralism In Eurasia
The Origins And Spread Of Agriculture And Pastoralism In Eurasia

Author: David R. Harris

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-11-01

Total Pages: 617

ISBN-13: 1040283462

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As the first book to examine the origins and spread of agriculture and pastoralism in Europe and Asia as a whole, this major contribution should be essential reading for archaeologists, anthropologists, biologists and geographers. Adopting a novel approach to the subject, the authors examine it first in terms of seven different disciplinary perspectives: social, ecological, genetic, linguistic, biomolecular, epidemiological and geogrpahical. Then, 20 case studies are presented, which are based primarily on archaeological and biological evidence and which relate to three major regions: Southwest Asia, Europe and Central Asia to the Pacific. The book concludes with an overview of Eurasia as a whole.; The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture had revolutionary consequences for human society. It led to the emergence of urban civilizations and ultimately to humanity's almost complete dependence on relatively few domesticated animals and plants. The subject has been much studied, but the results have tended to be interpreted largely in terms of local cultural sequences, with insufficient comparison made with evidence from other areas. In contrast, this book provides a continental- scale framework, with its scope extended to pastoralism because in Eurasia both the raising of livestock and the cultivation of crops were integral components of the agricultural "revolution" from its inception some 10,000 years ago.; Comprehensive and authoritative, "The Origins and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia" should appeal strongly to the wide readership of students and specialists concerned with the prehistoric antecedents of modern civilization.

Conflict and Resource Development in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea
Conflict and Resource Development in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea

Author: Nicole Haley

Publisher: ANU E Press

Published: 2007-11-01

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 1921313463

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The Southern Highlands is one of Papua New Guinea's most resource-rich provinces, but for a number of years the province has been riven by conflict. Longstanding inter-group rivalries, briefly set aside during the colonial period, have been compounded by competition for the benefits provided by the modern state and by fighting over the distribution of returns from the several big mining and petroleum projects located within the province or impinging upon it. Deaths from the various conflicts over the past decade number in the hundreds. As a result of inter-group fighting, criminal activity and vandalism, a number of businesses have withdrawn from the province. Roadblocks and ambushes have made travel dangerous in many parts and expatriate missionaries and aid workers have left. Many public servants have abandoned their posts with the result that state services are not provided. Corruption is rife. Police are often reluctant to act because they are outnumbered and outgunned. This volume brings together a number of authors with deep experience of the Southern Highlands to examine the underlying dynamics of resource development and conflict in the province. Its primary purpose is to provide some background to recent events, but the authors also explore possible approaches to limiting the human and economic costs of the ongoing conflict and breakdown of governance.

Archaeology of Oceania
Archaeology of Oceania

Author: Ian Lilley

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2008-04-15

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 140515229X

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This book is a state-of-the-art introduction to the archaeology of Oceania, covering both Australia and the Pacific Islands. The first text to provide integrated treatment of the archaeologies of Australia and the Pacific Islands Enables readers to form a coherent overview of cultural developments across the region as a whole Brings together contributions from some of the region’s leading scholars Focuses on new discoveries, conceptual innovations, and postcolonial realpolitik Challenges conventional thinking on major regional and global issues in archaeology

Climate Change and Cultural Dynamics
Climate Change and Cultural Dynamics

Author: David G. Anderson

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2011-07-28

Total Pages: 603

ISBN-13: 0080554555

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The Middle Holocene epoch (8,000 to 3,000 years ago) was a time of dramatic changes in the physical world and in human cultures. Across this span, climatic conditions changed rapidly, with cooling in the high to mid-latitudes and drying in the tropics. In many parts of the world, human groups became more complex, with early horticultural systems replaced by intensive agriculture and small-scale societies being replaced by larger, more hierarchial organizations. Climate Change and Cultural Dynamics explores the cause and effect relationship between climatic change and cultural transformations across the mid-Holocene (c. 4000 B.C.). - Explores the role of climatic change on the development of society around the world - Chapters detail diverse geographical regions - Co-written by noted archaeologists and paleoclimatologists for non-specialists

Rethinking Agriculture
Rethinking Agriculture

Author: Timothy P Denham

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-07

Total Pages: 477

ISBN-13: 1315421003

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Although the need to study agriculture in different parts of the world on its “own terms” has long been recognized and re-affirmed, a tendency persists to evaluate agriculture across the globe using concepts, lines of evidence and methods derived from Eurasian research. However, researchers working in different regions are becoming increasingly aware of fundamental differences in the nature of, and methods employed to study, agriculture and plant exploitation practices in the past. Contributions to this volume rethink agriculture, whether in terms of existing regional chronologies, in terms of techniques employed, or in terms of the concepts that frame our interpretations. This volume highlights new archaeological and ethnoarchaeological research on early agriculture in understudied non-Eurasian regions, including Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific, the Americas and Africa, to present a more balanced view of the origins and development of agricultural practices around the globe.

The Melanesian World
The Melanesian World

Author: Eric Hirsch

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-03-28

Total Pages: 676

ISBN-13: 131552967X

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This wide-ranging volume captures the diverse range of societies and experiences that form what has come to be known as Melanesia. It covers prehistoric, historic and contemporary issues, and includes work by art historians, political scientists, geographers and anthropologists. The chapters range from studies of subsistence, ritual and ceremonial exchange to accounts of state violence, new media and climate change. The ‘Melanesian world’ assembled here raises questions that cut to the heart of debates in the human sciences today, with profound implications for the ways in which scholars across disciplines can describe and understand human difference. This impressive collection of essays represents a valuable resource for scholars and students alike.