Indigenous banana cultivation dates back over 2,000 years

Ancient banana cultivation site at Wagadagam, Mabuyag. Image: ANU - ANU Archaeologists have found the earliest evidence of Indigenous communities cultivating bananas in Australia. 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. 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. Soils from the site showed definitive evidence for intensive banana cultivation in the form of starch granules, banana plant microfossils and charcoal. Lead researcher, Kambri-Ngunnawal scholar Robert Williams, says the findings help dispel the view that Australia's first peoples were "only hunter gatherers". "The Torres Strait has historically been seen as a separating line between Indigenous groups who practiced agriculture in New Guinea but who in Australia were hunter gatherers," Mr Williams said.