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..
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
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
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Flora
- Cultural participation
- Tillage
- Environmental quality
- Exchange and transfers
- Chronologies and culture sequences
- traditionCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- New Guinea Neolithic
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2000
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Oceania
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Melanesia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Archaeologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Sarah Berry; 1999
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- not specified
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 9,000 BP - 100 BP
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Highlands; Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya
- NotesAdditional notes
- J. Golson ; D. S. Gardner
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 413-417)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 72082136
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Papua New Guinea Antiquities