ABSTRACT
The domesticatory relationships between people and food plants in the highlands are considered and hypothesised. The domestication process starts relatively early and its duration depends upon the character of human-directed selection, namely management or cultivation. The resultant degrees of domestication reflect the cumulative effects of human interference in the life cycle and dispersal of plants over the long term. There are several reasons why domestication traits of vegetatively propagated plants may be difficult to track in the archaeobotanical record. Hypothetical scenarios can be proposed for plant domestication under different forms of plant exploitation in the highlands of New Guinea. A priori, the uncertain domestication status of many crop plants in the highlands of New Guinea makes it difficult to determine a set of domestication syndrome traits, as well as to track the emergence and fixation of these traits in archaeobotanical assemblages.
