2004/12/01 by Tim Denham · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory
paper · doi:10.1080/0043824042000303791
Agriculture and arboriculture in New Guinea, like many other aspects of material culture, are often characterized as either introduced by Austronesian language-speakers in the mid-Holocene or as earlier and independent developments by pre-existing Papuan language-speakers. I raise concerns with both interpretative tendencies, which have often yielded superficial regional histories that provide one-dimensional impressions of people, practices and places in the past. Drawing on my own archaeological research into early agriculture and arboriculture, I illustrate alternative possibilities for historical interpretation that do not over-emphasize the pre-Lapita isolation of New Guinea, but instead focus on regional interactions and mutual transformations of practice before, during and after the presumed arrival of Austronesian language-speakers in the region.