Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-s6l46 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-31T23:37:54.926Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Horticultural experimentation in northern Australia reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Tim Denham ,
Mark Donohue  and
Sara Booth
Tim Denham
Affiliation:
1School of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University, Clayton VIC 3800, Australia (Email: Tim.Denham@arts.monash.edu.au; sara.booth@mail.mcgill.ca)
Mark Donohue
Affiliation:
2Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, ACT 0200, Australia (Email: mark@donohue.cc)
Sara Booth
Affiliation:
1School of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University, Clayton VIC 3800, Australia (Email: Tim.Denham@arts.monash.edu.au; sara.booth@mail.mcgill.ca)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Did the banana, yam and taro arrive in Australia at the hands of Europeans or come across the Torres Strait 2000 years before? Reviewing the evidence from herbaria histories and anthropology, the authors propose a ‘hierarchy of hypotheses’ and consider a still earlier option, that these food plants were potentially grown in Australia at least 8000 years ago, while it was still joined to New Guinea. This hypothesis, first proposed by Jones and Meehan in 1989, locates early horticultural experiments among peoples too often seen as inveterate hunter-gatherers.

Keywords

AustraliaTorres StraitPleistoceneHolocenepalaeobotanybananataroyam

Information

Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 83 , Issue 321 , September 2009 , pp. 634 - 648
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abraham, K. & Gopinathan Nair, P.. 1991. Polyploidy and sterility in relation to sex in Dioscorea alata L. (Dioscoreaceae). Genetica 83: 93–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Argent, G.C.G. 1976. The wild bananas of Papua New Guinea. Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden (Edinburgh) 35: 77–114.Google Scholar
Barham, A. J. 2000. Late Holocene maritime societies in the Torres Strait Islands, northern Australia – cultural arrival or cultural emergence?, in O'Connor, S. & Veth, P. (ed.) East of Wallace's Line: studies of past and present maritime cultures of the Indo-Pacific region (Modern Quaternary Research in Southeast Asia 16): 223–314. Rotterdam: Balkema.Google Scholar
Barker, G. 2006. The agricultural revolution in prehistory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barton, H. & White, J.P.. 1993. Use of stone and shell artefacts at Balof 2, New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Asian Perspectives 32: 169–81.Google Scholar
Beaglehole, J. C. 1962. The Endeavour journal of Joseph Banks, 1768-1771. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.Google Scholar
Bean, A. R. 2007. A new system for determining which plant species are indigenous in Australia. Australian Systematic Botany 20: 1–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bellwood, P. 2005. First farmers. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Berndt, R. M. & Berndt, C. H.. 1993. A world that was: the Yaraldi of the Murray River and the Lakes, South Australia. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.Google Scholar
Birdsell, J. B. 1993. Microevolutionary patterns in Aboriginal Australia: a gradient analysis of clines. New York (NY): Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Carreel, F., Gonzalez De Leon, D., Lagoda, P., Lanaud, C., Jenny, C., Horry, J. P. & Tezenas Du Montcel, H.. 2002. Ascertaining maternal and paternal lineage within Musa chloroplast and mitochondrial DNA RFLP analyses. Genome 45: 679–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chappell, J. 2005. Geographic changes of coastal lowlands in the Papuan past, in Pawley, A., Attenborough, R., Golson, J. & Hide, R. (ed.) Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples: 525–39. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Chase, A. K. 1980. Which way now? Tradition, continuity and change in a north Queensland Aboriginal community. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Queensland.Google Scholar
Chase, A. K. 1989. Domestication and domiculture in northern Australia: a social perspective, in Harris, D. R. & Hillman, G. C. (ed.) Foraging and farming: the evolution of plant exploitation: 42–54. London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Chikwendu, V. E. & Okezie, C.E. A.. 1989. Factors responsible for the ennoblement of African yams: inferences from experiments in yam domestication, in Harris, D. R. & Hillman, G. C. (ed.) Foraging and farming: the evolution of plant exploitation: 344–57. London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Clarke, A. & Frederick, U.. 2006. Closing the distance: interpreting cross-cultural engagements through indigenous rock art, in Lilley, I. (ed.) Archaeology of Oceania: Australia and the Pacific Islands: 116–33. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Corbett, L. 2001. The dingo in Australia and Asia. Marleston: J. B. Books Australia.Google Scholar
Cribb, A. B. & Cribb, J. W.. 1974. Wild food in Australia. Sydney: William Collins.Google Scholar
David, B. & Denham, T. P.. 2006. Unpacking Australian prehistory, in David, B., Barker, B. & McNiven, I. (ed.) The social archaeology of indigenous societies: 52–71. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.Google Scholar
De Langhe, E. & De Maret, P.. 1999. Tracking the banana: its significance in early agriculture, in Gosden, C. & Hather, J. (ed.) The prehistory of food: appetites for change: 377–96. London & New York (NY): Routledge.Google Scholar
Denham, T. P. 2008. Traditional forms of plant exploitation in Australia and New Guinea: the search for common ground. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 17: 245–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denham, T. P. & Donohue, M.. 2009. Pre-Austronesian dispersal of banana cultivars west from New Guinea: linguistic relics from eastern Indonesia. Archaeology in Oceania 44: 18–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denham, T. P., Haberle, S. G., Lentfer, C., Fullagar, R., Field, J., Therin, M., Porch, N. & Winsborough, B.. 2003. Origins of agriculture at Kuk Swamp in the Highlands of New Guinea. Science 301: 189–93.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dick, H. 1994. Wild banana – Musa banksii. Australian Plants 17: 266.Google Scholar
Evans, N. & Jones, R.. 1997. The cradle of the Pama-Nyungans: archaeological and linguistic speculations, in McConvell, P. & Evans, N. (ed.) Archaeology and linguistics: Aboriginal Australia in global perspective: 385–417. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fullagar, R., Field, J., Denham, T. P. & Lentfer, C.. 2006. Early and mid-Holocene processing of taro (Colocasia esculenta) and yam (Dioscorea sp.) at Kuk Swamp in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Journal of Archaeological Science 33: 595–614.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golson, J. 1971. Australian Aboriginal food plants: some ecological and culture-historical implications, in Mulvaney, D. J. & Golson, J. (ed.) Aboriginal man and environment in Australia: 196–238. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
Haberle, S. G. 2005. A 22Ka pollen record from Lake Euramoo, wet tropics of northeast Queensland, Australia. Quaternary Research 64: 343–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, D. R. 1977. Subsistence strategies across Torres Strait, in Allen, J., Golson, J. & Jones, R. (ed.) Sunda and Sahul: prehistoric studies in Southeast Asia, Melanesia and Australia: 421–63. Melbourne: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Harris, D. R. 1995. Early agriculture in New Guinea and the Torres Strait divide. Antiquity 69: 848–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hope, G. S. & Golson, J.. 1995. Late Quaternary change in the mountains of New Guinea. Antiquity 69: 818–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hudjashova, G., Kivisilda, T., Underhilld, P. A., Endicotte, P., Sanchezf, J. J., Lind, A. A., Sheng, P., Oefnerh, P., Renfrew, C., Villemsa, R. & Forster, P.. 2007. Revealing the prehistoric settlement of Australia by Y chromosome and mtDNA analysis. Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences 104: 8726–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inibap. 2006. Global conservation strategy for Musa (Banana and Plantain). Montpellier: International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain.Google Scholar
Jones, R. & Meehan, B.. 1989. Plant foods of the Gidjingal: ethnographic and archaeological perspectives from northern Australia on tuber and seed exploitation, in Harris, D. R. & Hillman, G. C. (ed.) Foraging and farming: the evolution of plant exploitation: 120–35. London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Kayser, M., Brauer, S., Weiss, G., Schiefenh¨ovel, W., Underhill, P. A. & Stoneking, M.. 2001. Independent histories of human Y chromosomes from Melanesia. American Journal of Human Genetics 68: 173–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keen, I. 2003. Aboriginal economy and society: Australia at the threshold of colonisation. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lambeck, K. & Chappell, J.. 2001. Sea level change through the last glacial cycle. Science 292: 679–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lebot, V. 1999. Biomolecular evidence for plant domestication in Sahul. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 46: 619–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lebot, V., Prana, M. S., Kreike, N., Van Heck, H., Pardales, J., Okpul, T., Gendua, T., Thongjiem, M., Hue, H., Viet, N. & Yap, T. C.. 2004. Characterisation of taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott) genetic resources in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 51: 381–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lebot, V., Trilles, B., Noyer, J. L. & Modesto, J.. 1998. Genetic relationships between Dioscorea alata L. cultivars. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 45: 499–509.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lourandos, H. 1997. Continent of hunter-gatherers: new perspectives in Australian prehistory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Loy, T., Spriggs, M. & Wickler, S.. 1992. Direct evidence for human use of plants 28,000 years ago: starch residues on stone artefacts from northern Solomon Islands. Antiquity 66: 898–912.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macknight, C. 1976. The voyage to Marege: Macassan trepangers in northern Australia. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.Google Scholar
Malapa, R., Arnau, G., Noyer, J. L. & Lebot, V.. 2005. Genetic diversity of the greater yam (Dioscorea alata L.) and relatedness to D. nummularia Lam. and D. transversa Br. as revealed with AFLP markers. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 52: 919–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, F. W. 1976. Tropical yams and their potential. Part 3 (Dioscorea alata. Agriculture Handbook 495). Washington (DC): USDA.Google Scholar
Matthews, P. J. 1991. A possible wild type taro: Colocasia esculenta var. aquatilis. Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association Bulletin 11: 69–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matthews, P. J. & Terauchi, R.. 1994. The genetics of agriculture: DNA variation in taro and yam, in Hather, J. G. (ed.) Tropical archaeobotany: applications and new developments: 251–62. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mcniven, I. J. 2008. Inclusions, exclusions and transitions: Torres Strait Islander constructed landscapes over the past 4000 years, northeast Australia. The Holocene 18: 449–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mcniven, I. J., Dickinson, W. R., David, B., Weisler, M., Von Gnielinski, F., Carter, M. & Zoppi, U.. 2006. Mask Cave: red-slipped pottery and the Australian-Papuan settlement of Zenadh Kes (Torres Strait). Archaeology in Oceania 41: 49–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mignouna, H. D. & Dansi, A.. 2003. Yam (Dioscorea spp.) domestication by the Nago and Fon ethnic groups in Benin. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 50: 519–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, E. M. 1987. Musaceae. Flora of Australia 45: 16–19.Google Scholar
Russell-Smith, J., Lucas, D., Gapindi, M., Gunbunuka, B., Kapirigi, N., Namingum, G., Lucas, K., Giulani, P. & Chaloupka, G.. 1997. Aborignal resource utilisation and fire management practice in western Arnhem Land, monsoonal northern Australia: notes for prehistory, lessons for the future. Human Ecology 25: 159–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmonds, N. W. 1956a. A banana collecting expedition to South Asia and the Pacific. Tropical Agriculture 33: 251–71.Google Scholar
Simmonds, N. W. 1956b. Botanical results of the banana collecting expedition, 1954-5. Kew Bulletin 11: 463–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swadling, P. & Hope, G.S.. 1992. Environmental change in New Guinea since human settlement, in Dodson, J. R. (ed.) The na¨ive lands: 13–42. Melbourne: Longman.Google Scholar
Telford, I. R. 1986. Dioscoraceae. Flora of Australia 46: 196-202, 219.Google Scholar
Walker, A. & Zorc, R. D.. 1981. Austronesian loanwords in Yolngu-Matha of northeast Arnhem Land. Aboriginal History 5: 107–34.Google Scholar
White, C. T. 1919. Order Dioscorideae (Botany Bulletin 21, Contributions to the Queensland Flora): 22. Brisbane: Queensland: Department of Agriculture and Stock.Google Scholar
Yen, D. E. 1995. The development of Sahul agriculture with Australia as bystander. Antiquity 69: 831–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yen, D. E. 1996. Melanesian arboriculture: historical perspectives with emphasis on the genus Canarium, in Stevens, M. L., Bourke, R. M. & Evans, B. R. (ed.) South Pacific Indigenous Nuts: 36–44. Canberra: ACIAR.Google Scholar