Kuk Swamp
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How it came to be
The Kuk Early Agricultural Site is 116 ha of swamp in the western highlands of Papua New Guinea, about 1,500 m above sea level. It lies in the Wahgi Valley 12 to 13 km north-east of Mount Hagen, and the Kawelka, a Melpa-speaking people, live in the area today.
Excavation has shown that the wetland was reclaimed and farmed almost continuously for about 7,000 years, and possibly 10,000. About 6,500 years ago people shifted from gathering plants to farming them. Farming moved from planting on mounds at the wetland's edge to draining the swamp with ditches dug with wooden tools. Evidence of banana and sugar cane cultivation dated to between 6,900 and 6,400 years ago has also been found.
Kuk is one of the few places in the world where archaeological evidence suggests agriculture developed independently. Excavation has touched only a small part of the core area, and present-day farming, a modern form of traditional practice, leaves the buried features undisturbed. The site was inscribed in 2008.
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