article

Agriculture and sociopolitical organization in New Guinea highlands prehistory

Annual review of anthropology • 19 • Published In 1990 • Pages: 395-417

By: Golson, Jack, Gardner, D. S..

Abstract

Golson and Gardner explore the question of how the introduction of the sweet potato or earlier agricultural practices may have changed agriculture and influenced the character of Highland societies. By looking at early agriculture, particularly at Kuk (although at the end of the document agricultural development in the Baliem valley of Irian Jaya and the Kainantu district of Eastern Highlands Province in Papua New Guinea are also examined), Golson changes his proposition about the preconditions needed for social differentiation. He now believes social differentiation could occur where there is unequal access between land with high sustainable taro yeilds (such as swamps) and land where good yields under swidden agriculture decreased as grassland cultivation degraded the productivity of the soil. Golson and Gardner find that many of the environmental changes and land use practices thought to have occurred under sweet potato cultivation actually occurred much earlier. Full domestication of the pig also seems to have occurred when pigs could no longer forage because of redused forests, so people would have had to start feeding the pigs and agricultural production would have had to increase to supply the fodder. Axe quarrying and exchange also intesified around the time that pig husbandry increases, the environment changes from forest to grassland, and agricultureal production intensifies. All this seems to have occurred before the introduction of the sweet potato. Golson and Gardner go on to conclude they have good evidence for widespread early agriculture, but don't have good evidence that high productivity led to significant political inequalities

HRAF PubDate

2000

Region

Oceania

Sub Region

Melanesia

Document Type

article

Evaluation

Creator Type

Archaeologist

Document Rating

4: Excellent Secondary Data

5: Excellent Primary Data

Analyst

Sarah Berry; 1999

Field Date

not specified

Coverage Date

9,000 BP - 100 BP

Coverage Place

Highlands; Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya

Notes

J. Golson ; D. S. Gardner

Includes bibliographical references (p. 413-417)

LCCN

72082136

LCSH

Papua New Guinea Antiquities