How it began
Kuk is a swamp of 116 hectares in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea, about 1,500 meters above sea level. Excavations reported in Science in 2003 by Tim Denham and colleagues identified three early phases. The first, dated 10,220 to 9,910 years ago, left pits, stake holes, postholes and runnels. The second, 6,950 to 6,440 years ago, left regularly spaced mounds. The third, 4,350 to 3,980 years ago, left the earliest networks of ditches. UNESCO places the shift from plant gathering to agriculture at around 6,500 years ago.
Before it existed
Denham and colleagues wrote that New Guinea had generally been treated as a secondary center, where farming was derived from or set off by crops arriving from Southeast Asia. Their evidence showed cultivation at Kuk before any known Southeast Asian influence. They found that New Guinea received domesticated plants from Southeast Asia only after about 3,500 years ago.
How it works
People first planted on the better drained margins of the wetland, raising circular mounds so that crops stood above waterlogged ground. Later they cut channels through the swamp with wooden tools to drain it, building ditch networks that were renewed over time. Starch grains of taro were found on stone tools from the first two phases, and banana phytoliths show planting in a managed grassland from the second phase. UNESCO also lists yam among the crops.
What lasted
UNESCO calls Kuk one of the few places in the world where archaeological evidence suggests independent agricultural development and shows changes in practice over 7,000 and possibly 10,000 years. The 2003 study concluded that New Guinea was a primary center of agriculture and plant domestication.
Where it stands today
Kuk Early Agricultural Site was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2008. UNESCO reports that ditches dug with wooden tools continued from about 4,000 years ago to the present, that modern farming on the site remains low-key, and that a management plan and agreements on customary protection were still to be completed at the time of inscription.
