The roots of agriculture and arboriculture in New Guinea: Looking beyond Austronesian expansion, Neolithic packages and indigenous origins

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.