The Mound Builders

Agricultural Practices, Environment, and Society in the Central Highlands of New Guinea

by Eric Waddell

University of Washington Press, 1972, [First Edition], ISBN 0295951699, black and white photographic plates, maps and graphs, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, minor foxing marks to front endpapers, no inscriptions, price-clipped dustjacket shows a little edge and shelf wear with a little rubbing, bumping, chipping, creasing and discolouration to spine (see photographs)

“Because of the locally organized, subsistence-oriented societies of Highland New Guinea lend themselves readily to ecological analysis, the region is assuming considerable importance in the development of methodology and theory in cultural ecology.  Eric Waddell’s analysis of the Raiapu Enga agricultural system is an important contribution to this field, while at the same time it increases our understanding of Highland societies.
Using as his point of departure the highly distinctive agricultural mounding practices of the Raiapu Enga agricultural mounding practices of the Raiapu, Waddell isolates the regularities characterizing their system of livelihood.  He demonstrates how such diverse variables as social organization, natural ecology, agricultural and economic considerations, and demographic trends are articulated with reference to space, time, and productivity.”