< home # store # services # articles # game # app #contact >

Archaeological evidence (phytoliths, microscopic plant silica remains) indicates bananas were cultivated and undergoing domestication at least 6.9 to 6,400 years ago
In the Kuk Swamp region, of Papua New Guinea.

Modern edible bananas do not occur naturally in the wild the way we eat them today; they are the result of selection for seedlessness or parthenocarpy, (seedless fruit development without pollination), and larger edible fruits
Wild bananas ancestors, like Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana, originally had numerous hard seeds and were not as palatable.

Domestication involved hybridization and polyploidy from the wild ancestors of musa

Humans in New Guinea, and surrounding areas, selected and propagated individuals that naturally had fewer seeds and sweeter flesh
Over centuries, this selection for parthenocarpy, (seedless fruit development without pollination), led to the sterile, seedless bananas we know today.

Banana domestication was not a single “discovery” by a named individual. It occurred gradually
Practices of many prehistoric peoples, especially in New Guinea, and later Austronesian communities.

With human migrations and trading, cultivated bananas spread from there across Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa, and eventually worldwide

Check them out with some more neolithic architecture today.

Bibliography: Denham, T. et al. Banana domestication evidence from Kuk Swamp (New Guinea) – archaeological phytolith research.

De Langhe, E., Vrydaghs, L., Perrier, X. & Denham, T. Intro to banana domestication (Ethnobotany Research & Applications). Ethnobotany Journal

USDA Database entry (https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/1105314/nutrients) values are for edible portion

Morton, Julia F. (2013). “Banana”. Fruits of warm climates (http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/banana.html#Other%20Uses). Echo Point Books & Media. pp. 29–46. ISBN 978-1-62654-976-0. OCLC 861735500 (https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/861735500).

Biology of Musa L. (banana (https://web.archive.org/web/20230310194856/https://www.og
tr.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-02/the_biology_of_musa_l_banana.pdf) – Office of the Gene Technology Regulator, Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Australian Government