Shifting cultivation
Friday 4th July: 11:00 - 13:002 hour session: 5-10 minute position papers each followed by discussion
Tim Denham (Monash University, School of Geography and Environmental Science)
Robin Torrence (Australian Museum)
Peter J. Matthews (National Museum of Ethnology, Oska)
Abstract
The session will discuss theoretical and methodological issues concerning the origins and history of shifting cultivation in tropical environments. The aim is to take a critical appraisal at well entrenched ideas about how shifting cultivation fits within theories about agricultural origins and change. One widely accepted view is that this form of agriculture is widespread because it is perfectly suited to the soils and climate of tropical forests and, as such, it probably developed gradually out of low intensity forms of plant management. Secondly, shifting cultivation is generally thought to require low amounts of energy and therefore to precede permanent, labour intensive forms of agriculture. In contrast, William Denevan has made the radical proposal that without the use of metal tools, shifting cultivation is not the most energy-efficient way to exploit these environments, especially when compared to permanent agriculture based on soils renewed annually on flood plains. If he is correct, then we might expect shifting agriculture to develop out of more intense sedentary cultivation. We invite case studies across a wide range of tropical settings and time periods. These should examine the history of shifting cultivation and particularly the validity of Denevan's hypothesis and/or offer alternative models for shifting cultivation. The session will also address definitional and typological problems with describing shifting cultivation and methods for monitoring its occurrence, variation and change in the archaeological record.
Papers
- Shifting cultivation in PreEuropean Amazonia????
William Woods - Extensive to intensive, or first fruits and then roots?
Manuel Arroyo-Kalin, Charles Clement, James Fraser, Eduardo Neves - The Bantu expansion and the first millennium BC Central African rainforest crisis
Katharina Neumann, Alfred Ngomanda, Barthelémy Tchiengué - Shifting cultivation and floodplain-cropping - archaeobotanical evidence of different modes of Iron Age millet cultivation in the Sahel of West Africa
Alexa Hoehn, Stefanie Kahlheber, Katharina Neumann - Ecological context and socio-economic changes in a Yao mountain village, northern Thailand
Takashi Masuno - Shifting cultivation in the aftermath of volcanic eruptions in the Willaumez Peninsula, Papua New Guinea
Robin Torrence - Vegetation change and land use in the wet tropics of West New Britain, Papua New Guinea: evidence from phytolith analysis
Carol Lentfer, Robin Torrence, Jim Specht, Christina Pavlides, Richard Fullagar - Spatio-temporal continuities and discontinuities in shifting cultivation across the highlands of New Guinea during the Holocene
Tim Denham
