Independent agriculture at Kuk Swamp, New Guinea highlands
- Date
- c. 7000–5000 BCE (c. 9000–7000 years ago)
- Category
- Science, technology & invention
- Region
- Sahul (New Guinea highlands)
- Era
- Prehistory
- Significance
In the Wahgi Valley of the New Guinea highlands, the wetland site of Kuk Swamp preserves some of the clearest evidence that agriculture arose independently in the tropics of Sahul.
Excavations revealed traces of plant exploitation and mounded cultivation from around 10,000 years ago, with formal drainage ditches and channels for managing wetland gardens appearing by roughly 7,000 years ago. Starch grains, phytoliths and other microremains indicate the cultivation of taro (Colocasia esculenta), bananas (Musa) and sugarcane (Saccharum) — a vegetatively propagated, root- and fruit-based farming system fundamentally different from the seed-grain agriculture of Eurasia and the Americas. New Guinea is therefore recognised as one of the few places on Earth where people domesticated plants without outside influence. Bananas first cultivated here later spread across the Indian Ocean world to become a global staple. Kuk was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008 in recognition of this independent agricultural origin.
One piece of history in your inbox, weekly
New empires, events and features as they land — one good email a week. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Related science, technology & invention events
- Domestication of maize from teosinte in Mesoamericac. 7000 BCE (c. 9,000 years ago)
- Pottery becomes a Neolithic mainstay across western Eurasiac. 7000 – 5000 BCE
- Earliest milk processing: the dawn of dairyingc. 6500–6000 BCE
- Domestication of rice in the Yangtze River basinc. 8000–6000 BCE
- Domestication of foxtail and broomcorn millet on the Yellow Riverc. 8000–6000 BCE
- First canal irrigation at Choga Mami and the Samarra culturec. 6000 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
A Little History of Science
Warm, jargon-free tour of discovery from Babylonian stargazers to the genome.
Get it on Amazon →As an Amazon Associate, Human Saga earns from qualifying purchases.