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EARLY HISTORY OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA. At no time was PNG completely joined to South East Asia, but it was joined to Australia, probably until about 6000 years ago. As a result, PNG shares many species of plants and animals (including marsupials) with Australia but not Indonesia. The Wallace line marks the deep water between Bali and Lombok and Kalimantan and Sulawesi that formed a natural barrier to animals and plants. To reach PNG, people had to cross open water on canoes or rafts. Several waves of people have arrived in PNG from Asia, and this may be reflected in the distribution of Austronesian and non-Austronesian languages. The Austronesian languages are scattered along the coast and are spoken throughout Polynesia and Micronesia. The majority of Papua New Guineans speak non-Austronesian languages and, it is believed, arrived before the Austronesian language speakers. As the world’s climate warmed, the sea level rose, isolating PNG and submerging the original coastal settlements. Parts of the Huon Peninsula have subsequently risen due to volcanic activity. Evidence of early coastal settlements have been exposed – 40,000year-old stone axes have been found. People reached the Highlands about 30,000 years ago and most of the valleys were settled over the next 20,000 years. Trade between the Highlands and the coast have been going on for at least 10,000 years. Kuk (or Kup) Swamp in the Wahgi Valley (Western Highlands) has evidence of human habitation going back 20,000 years. Even more significantly there is evidence of gardening beginning 9000 years ago. This makes Papua New Guineans among the first farmers in the world. The main foods farmed at that stage are likely to have been sago, coconuts, breadfruit, local bananas, yams, sugar cane (which originated in PNG), nuts and edible leaves. It is uncertain when the pig and more productive starch crops (yams, taros, bananas) were introduced, but it is known that pigs arrived at least 10,000 years ago. As previously mentioned, the first European impact on PNG was indirect but far reaching. The sweet potato was taken to South East Asia from South America by the Portuguese and Spanish in the 16th century. It is believed Malay traders then brought it to Irian Jaya from where it was traded to the Highlands. The introduction of the sweet potato must have brought radical change to life in the Highlands, its high yield and tolerance for poor and cold soils allowed the colonisation of higher altitudes, the domestication of many more pigs and a major increase in human population. The next development preceding the permanent arrival of Europeans was the arrival of steel axes which were traded from the coast to the Highlands. The introduction of these more efficient axes reduced the workload of men, increased bride price payments and maybe because of increased leisure time, encouraged war.
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Lonely Planets Bushwalking in Papua New Guinea p 12 ISBN 0864420528
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