Wetland drainage horticulture (taro, banana)
Horticultura de taro y banano con drenaje de humedales
- Date
- c. 8000 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Kuk Swamp, Wahgi Valley, Papua New Guinea
- Credited to
- Highland communities of New Guinea
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Mounds, planting pits and, later, networks of drainage ditches to grow taro, yam and banana in highland swamps. An independent centre of agriculture based on tubers rather than seeds.
Phase 1 (c. 8000 BCE) is disputed; the Phase 2 ditches (c. 5000 BCE) with banana phytoliths enjoy broad consensus. A World Heritage Site.
What it led to
- Agriculture without cereals, pottery or metal, supporting high population density in the highlands
- Domestication of the banana and its later spread to Asia and Africa
- Hydraulic management of the landscape through ditches
Built on
Made possible
- Sugarcane domesticationc. 6000 BCE
- Canal irrigationc. 6000 BCE
- Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) domesticationc. 1000 BCE (muy aproximado)
- Atoll pit cultivation (pulaka, babai)c. century XI (estimado)
- Irrigated taro pondfields (loʻi kalo)c. 1100-1500
- Sweet potato revolution in the New Guinea highlandsc. 1650 (muy discutido)
- Banana domestication
- Pacific tuber farming