Allan Shumaker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That is a mystery that no one has an answer for
> (yet). It is also interesting that another
> isolated center of agriculture was in the
> highlands of New Guinea.
>
> A very readable book that explains how
> agriculture/domestication developed and spread in
> different regions is Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs
> & Steel", though he presents no answer for the
> simultaneous timing.
>
> I have always suspected that plant cultivation
> probably started in tropical regions during the
> Pleistocene but there is very little evidence to
> support this contention. About the only evidence
> is the distribution of seedless bananas in
> Melanesia which had to be carried as seedlings by
> Pleistocene mariners.
The evidence for early domestication of banana, taro and perhaps sugar cane in new Guinea is clear. the banana may go back 10 KYA (8000 BC). I have the pdf.

Bernard