The next thing that's fascinating about the highlands is that different tribes never centralized and agglomerated into a larger society. It seems like this is due to a few structural reasons. In the highlands, despite the invention of agriculture, crops would go bad quickly - root crops like taro rot within weeks of being pulled out of the ground, unlike grain, which you can pile in a shed for years - so there was no produce to store, trade en masse or tax, or to take on broader projects. There were no animals to work the fields or carry anything. There was no writing to document anything. And while there was a constant supply of food, there was never enough of it, especially protein. So while each of these things seems small, together they meant that the highlands never evolved to the next stage of development and formed larger centralized communities, where cultural innovation and less warfare could have led to greater progress.
why I can't stop thinking about Papua New Guinea and what I think everyone should know about it
https://notnottalmud.substack.com/p/why-i-cant-stop-thinking-about-papua
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why I can't stop thinking about Papua New Guinea and what I think everyone should know about it
https://notnottalmud.substack.com/p/why-i-cant-stop-thinking-about-papua