DOI article:
Lerche, Grith; Steensberg, Axel: Observations on spade-cultivation in the New Guinea Highlands
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48999#0094
88
G. LERCHE & AX. STEENSBERG
Fig. 2. The blade of spade no. 1 in fig. 1. It has
been resharpened at the point. Photo G. L.
Das Blatt des Spatens Nr. 1 in Fig. 1. Es war an der
Spitze neu geschliffen worden.
practice to keep wooden objects in moist places
to prevent them from splitting or cracking
when not in daily use (Freund).1
In his book “Breaking Ground”, Fritz L.
Kramer published a great variety of hand-tools
for cultivation from all parts of the world
(Kramer). Such provisional surveys need to
stress formal criteria as significant elements for
a classification, and in archaeology most classi-
fications have until quite recently made use of
this method. However, all agricultural imple-
ments have been adapted to local environments.
And therefore it will be necessary - if possible
- also to take their functions into consideration
as F. Sach did it in his classification system for
ploughs (Sach).
It seemed, therefore, to be an urgent task to
study how wooden spades had been used in
New Guinea where old people still remember
the technique practised until quite recently.2
Professor Jack Golson of the Australian Natio-
nal University in Canberra invited the present
authors to visit the New Guinea Highlands in
autumn 1968, specifically in respect of such an
investigation. Our stay was too short for a
deeper penetration into all the problems, but
we hope that the following presentation may
tempt other scholars to extend our research
before this tradition is completely extinguished
(Nilles 208-209; Vicedom & Tischner 186).
The digging tools of New Guinea can be
divided into three groups: 1) long, heavy spades,
similar to the New Zealand Ko, but without
foot-steps, 2) short paddle-shaped spades, simi-
lar to the New Zealand Kahero, but never fur-
nished with an angled handle (Best 21-43), and
3) digging sticks pointed at one end for uproot-
ing tubers from the mounds. The last two types
can be combined in one for ceremonial use.
In 1966 during the draining of an ostensibly
virgin swamp for tea cultivation in the upper
Wahgi valley near Mt. Hagen, channels were
cut through an average depth of c. Wz m of peat
and black soil in which some pointed wooden
digging sticks and paddle shaped wooden spades
were found. These spades were up to 2,5 m in
length and no longer used locally but recog-
nized by the natives to be spades once used for
cutting drainage ditches. Cultural material was
found only in the black soil, and this had been
sectioned by ditches in a chess-board pattern.
In one of these ditches was found a wooden
spade and a pointed digging stick. The latter
has been dated by C-14 analysis to 350 ± 120
B. C. In the neighbourhood was found a paddle
shaped spade in the homogeneous black soil
(beneath undisturbed and well structured peat)
which represents the agricultural period and
which contained the evidence of superimposed
drainage ditches. The paddle shaped spade is at
least older than about 400 years, which marks
G. LERCHE & AX. STEENSBERG
Fig. 2. The blade of spade no. 1 in fig. 1. It has
been resharpened at the point. Photo G. L.
Das Blatt des Spatens Nr. 1 in Fig. 1. Es war an der
Spitze neu geschliffen worden.
practice to keep wooden objects in moist places
to prevent them from splitting or cracking
when not in daily use (Freund).1
In his book “Breaking Ground”, Fritz L.
Kramer published a great variety of hand-tools
for cultivation from all parts of the world
(Kramer). Such provisional surveys need to
stress formal criteria as significant elements for
a classification, and in archaeology most classi-
fications have until quite recently made use of
this method. However, all agricultural imple-
ments have been adapted to local environments.
And therefore it will be necessary - if possible
- also to take their functions into consideration
as F. Sach did it in his classification system for
ploughs (Sach).
It seemed, therefore, to be an urgent task to
study how wooden spades had been used in
New Guinea where old people still remember
the technique practised until quite recently.2
Professor Jack Golson of the Australian Natio-
nal University in Canberra invited the present
authors to visit the New Guinea Highlands in
autumn 1968, specifically in respect of such an
investigation. Our stay was too short for a
deeper penetration into all the problems, but
we hope that the following presentation may
tempt other scholars to extend our research
before this tradition is completely extinguished
(Nilles 208-209; Vicedom & Tischner 186).
The digging tools of New Guinea can be
divided into three groups: 1) long, heavy spades,
similar to the New Zealand Ko, but without
foot-steps, 2) short paddle-shaped spades, simi-
lar to the New Zealand Kahero, but never fur-
nished with an angled handle (Best 21-43), and
3) digging sticks pointed at one end for uproot-
ing tubers from the mounds. The last two types
can be combined in one for ceremonial use.
In 1966 during the draining of an ostensibly
virgin swamp for tea cultivation in the upper
Wahgi valley near Mt. Hagen, channels were
cut through an average depth of c. Wz m of peat
and black soil in which some pointed wooden
digging sticks and paddle shaped wooden spades
were found. These spades were up to 2,5 m in
length and no longer used locally but recog-
nized by the natives to be spades once used for
cutting drainage ditches. Cultural material was
found only in the black soil, and this had been
sectioned by ditches in a chess-board pattern.
In one of these ditches was found a wooden
spade and a pointed digging stick. The latter
has been dated by C-14 analysis to 350 ± 120
B. C. In the neighbourhood was found a paddle
shaped spade in the homogeneous black soil
(beneath undisturbed and well structured peat)
which represents the agricultural period and
which contained the evidence of superimposed
drainage ditches. The paddle shaped spade is at
least older than about 400 years, which marks