Unearthing the roots of agriculture: multi-disciplinary investigations of Pleistocene and Holocene plant exploitation in Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea

The Project aims to clarify how early and independent agriculture emerged from pre-existing plant exploitation practices in New Guinea. Archaeological investigations at occupation sites in the Crater Mountain Wildlife Management Area, southern Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea, will establish a chronology of plant exploitation during the Pleistocene and Holocene. Archaeological survey and excavations will focus on caves and rock shelters in a previously unstudied region. A multi-disciplinary suite of archaeobotanical (macrofossil and microfossil), archaeological, dating, molecular, palaeoecological, and stratigraphic analyses will register changes in past plant use through time for highland and highland fringe environments.