TechnologyOceania and Australia

Gardening in New Guinea

7,001 BCE

Ditches and beds in the highlands, independent of the rest of the world

In depth

The Kuk swamp is among the strongest evidence that agriculture arose several times independently. Its layers show drained beds from around 7000 BCE and a fully built ditch system some thousands of years later. The banana was domesticated here and later followed Austronesian seafarers westwards — as far as Africa, where it became one of the continent's most important crops.

For children

In the highlands of New Guinea people dug ditches to drain the swamp and grow taro and banana. They knew nothing of the farming in the Middle East or China — they worked it out entirely on their own.

Connects to

Farming begins9,501 BCE
The Lapita strike out east1,501 BCE – 801 BCE
The Bantu expansion1,001 BCE

Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org