Wetland site in the Wahgi Valley of the PNG Highlands where wetland drainage and mounding cultivation of taro, and later bananas and sugarcane, mark one of the world's few independent centres of plant domestication.
Agricultural use of the site continued through later archaeologically-defined phases (into the historic period; the Kawelka/Melpa-speaking people farm the area today) — this record covers only the phases with radiocarbon evidence overlapping 5000-4000 BC; see notes.
The definitive site monograph synthesizing the excavation evidence and phase chronology for Kuk Swamp.
Broad, standard archaeological history of Pacific/Oceanic prehistory; situates Kuk Swamp within the wider Melanesian and Pacific settlement sequence (Lapita is centuries later).