FIRST NATIONS
WOMENJEKA Indigenous banana cultivation dates back over 2,000 years
Findings dispel the view that Australia’s first peoples were ‘only hunter gatherers’
“Our research shows the ancestors of the Goemulgal people of Mabuyag were engaged in complex and diverse cultivation and horticultural practices in the western Torres Strait at least 2,000 years ago. “So rather than being a barrier, the Torres Strait was more of a bridge or a filter of cultural and horticultural practices going both north and south. “The type of banana we found on Mabuyag appeared much earlier on New Guinea, which was a centre of banana domestication.”
Terraced banana cultivation site at Wagadagam, Mabuyag Island, Australia. Image credit: ANU
The team also found stone flake tools with plant residues along their cutting surfaces.
Australian National University (ANU) archaeologists have found the earliest evidence of Indigenous communities cultivating bananas more than 2,000 years ago.
“What we’re seeing here is an Indo-Pacific horticultural tradition based primarily on things like yams, taro and banana and important fat and protein elements in the form of fish, dugong and turtle, these people had a very high-quality diet,” Mr Williams said.
The evidence of cultivation and plant management dates back 2,145 years and was found at Wagadagam on the tiny island of Mabuyag in the western Torres Strait.
“Food is an important part of Indigenous culture and identity and this research shows the age and time depth of these practices. I hope it will spark interest in these food traditions and might move people back towards them.”
The site comprised a series of retaining walls associated with gardening activities along with a network of stone arrangements, shell arrangements, rock art and a mound of dugong bones.
Mr Williams said the charcoal found at the site indicated burning for gardening activities. Excavated charcoal provided dates for the finds through radiocarbon dating.
Soils from the site showed definitive evidence for intensive banana cultivation in the form of starch granules, banana plant microfossils and charcoal.
Co-researcher Dr Duncan Wright said the Torres Strait region was a place where local innovations took place.
Lead researcher, Kambri-Ngunnawal scholar Robert Williams, says the findings help dispel the view that Australia’s first peoples were “only hunter gatherers”.
“The age of the banana propagation is also very significant. It’s not something we expect to see in continental Australia and this is the earliest well dated evidence for plant management in Torres Strait,” Dr Wright said.
“The Torres Strait has historically been seen as a separating line between Indigenous groups who practised agriculture in New Guinea but who in Australia were hunter gatherers,” Mr Williams said.
“At the time I thought it was odd to see cultivation in a landscape otherwise set aside for 31
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