Dr Tim Denham is Reader/Associate Professor of Archaeology at the Australian National University. He has undertaken fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, mostly in the highland interior, since 1990. His primary research has focussed on plant exploitation and the emergence of agriculture in the highlands during the Holocene. He has also published on the Holocene histories of Island Southeast Asia and northern Australia. Over the last decade, his interests have diversified to include: the domestication of vegetatively propagated crops, especially bananas; geoarchaeology and environmental change, mainly in the wet tropics; and, the application of new technologies to archaeological questions.

• TABLE OF CONTENTSPART I. RETHINKING EARLY AGRICULTURECHAPTER 1. EARLY AGRICULTURE IN THE HIGHLANDS: AN UNEXPECTED STORY; CHAPTER 2. PART II. PLACES, PRACTICES AND PLANTSDEFINING EARLY AGRICULTURE IN NEW GUINEA; CHAPTER 3. THE IMPORTANCE OF PLACE; CHAPTER 4. CULTIVATION PRACTICES IN THE HIGHLANDS; CHAPTER 5. THE PLANTS OF HIGHLAND CULTIVATIONPART III. PRACTICES IN THE PASTCHAPTER 6: EXPLOITING DIVERSITY IN THE PLEISTOCENE; CHAPTER 7: AMBIGUITIES OF PRACTICE DURING THE EARLY HOLOCENE; CHAPTER 8. THE EMERGENCE OF SHIFTING CULTIVATION; CHAPTER 9. THE ADOPTION OF MOUND CULTIVATION DURING THE MID HOLOCENE; CHAPTER 10. THE DIGGING OF DRAINAGE DITCHES DURING THE LATE HOLOCENE; CHAPTER 11. LATER INNOVATIONS, INTRODUCTIONS AND ADOPTIONSPART IV. TAKING A BROADER VIEWCHAPTER 12. HISTORICAL RESILIENCE OF AGRICULTURE IN THE HIGHLANDS; CHAPTER 13. THE GLOBAL SIGNIFICANCE OF EARLY AGRICULTURE ON NEW GUINEA; BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEX