From Domestication Histories to Regional Prehistory: Using Plants to Re-evaluate Early and Mid-Holocene Interaction between New Guinea and Southeast Asia
نویسنده
چکیده
Emerging records of plant distributions and domestications for three carbohydrate-rich plants indicate highly complex histories of social interaction between New Guinea and Island Southeast Asia during the early and mid-Holocene. Phytogeographic, morphological, molecular and archaeobotanical evidence suggests variable histories of domestication: for Musa bananas is complex and involved inter-regional hybridisation between species and subspecies; for taro (Colocasia esculenta) suggests regional isolation of wild populations and separate domestications; and, for the greater yam (Dioscorea alata) is suggestive of initial domestication of an unknown wild-type in the New Guinea region with subsequent widespread dispersal of sterile clones. Tim Denham School of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia From Domestication Histories to Regional Prehistory: Using Plants to Re-evaluate Early and Mid-Holocene Interaction between New Guinea and Southeast Asia Food & History, vol. 8, n° 1 (2010), pp. 3-22 doi: 10.1484/J.FOOD.1.100971
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