Agriculture was invented independently only a handful of times anywhere on Earth, and this wet field in the Western Highlands is one of the places it happened. Under the ground are drainage systems going back about 9,000 years: major disposal channels, large field ditches and small field ditches, dug with wooden digging sticks that are still down there, plus a grindstone. Taro was being grown 9,000 years ago and bananas and sugar cane 6,900 to 6,400 years ago, and those bananas were Eumusa varieties, the group that every banana you have ever eaten descends from. The Kawelka people, Melpa speakers, live on it now. UNESCO listed 116 hectares of it in 2008. About 12 to 13 km northeast of Mount Hagen at 1,550 metres.
Western Highlands, Papua New Guinea
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