Kava domestication (Piper methysticum)
Domesticación del kava (Piper methysticum)
- Date
- c. 1000 BCE (muy aproximado) · confidence low
- Place
- Northern Vanuatu, Vanuatu
- Credited to
- Melanesian horticulturalists of northern Vanuatu
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A plant whose root, chewed or ground, gives a sedative ceremonial drink. It is a sterile crop propagated only by cuttings, obtained by human selection from Piper wichmannii in the islands of northern Vanuatu.
The Vanuatu origin rests on genetics and cultivar diversity (Lebot and colleagues), not on archaeological remains; the date is an inference with no finds to pin it down.
What it led to
- a ceremonial drink central to Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Pohnpei and Hawaii
- spread through the voyages that settled Polynesia
- present-day pharmacological and commercial use as an anxiolytic