Editing Banana (section)

=== Domestication ===

{{See also|Musa acuminata|Domesticated plants and animals of Austronesia|East African Highland bananas}}

The earliest domestication of bananas (''[[Musa (genus)|Musa]]'' spp.) was from naturally occurring [[parthenocarpic]] (seedless) individuals of ''[[Musa banksii]]'' in [[New Guinea]].<!--<ref name="apscience"/>-->{{sfn|Nelson|Ploetz|Kepler|2006}} These were cultivated by [[Indigenous people of New Guinea|Papuans]] before the arrival of [[Austronesian peoples|Austronesian-speakers]]. Numerous [[phytolith]]s of bananas have been recovered from the [[Kuk Swamp]] archaeological site and dated to around 10,000 to 6,500 [[Before Present|BP]].<ref name="Denham-2011"/><!--<ref name="Perrier2009"/>--><ref name="Fuller-2015"/> [[Foraging]] humans in this area began domestication in the late [[Pleistocene]] using [[transplanting|transplantation]] and early [[tillage|cultivation]] methods.<ref name="Roberts-2017">{{cite journal |last1=Roberts |first1=Patrick |last2=Hunt |first2=Chris |last3=Arroyo-Kalin |first3=Manuel |last4=Evans |first4=Damian |last5=Boivin |first5=Nicole |title=The deep human prehistory of global tropical forests and its relevance for modern conservation |journal=[[Nature Plants]] |publisher=[[Nature Portfolio]] |volume=3 |issue=8 |date=2017-08-03 |page=17093 |pmid=28770823 |doi=10.1038/nplants.2017.93 |bibcode=2017NatPl...317093R |url=https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/6697/3/Roberts%20et%20al.%20revised%20main%20text%20accepted%20version%20with%20pix.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/6697/3/Roberts%20et%20al.%20revised%20main%20text%20accepted%20version%20with%20pix.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live }}</ref> By the early to middle of the [[Holocene]] the process was complete.<!--<ref name="Harris-Hillman-1989"/>--><ref name="Roberts-2017"/> From New Guinea, cultivated bananas spread westward into [[Island Southeast Asia]]. They [[hybrid (biology)|hybridized]] with other (possibly independently domesticated) [[subspecies]] of ''Musa acuminata'' as well as ''M. balbisiana'' in the Philippines, northern New Guinea, and possibly [[Halmahera]]. These hybridization events produced the triploid [[List of banana cultivars|cultivars of bananas]] commonly grown today.<ref name="Denham-2011"/> The banana was one of the key crops that [[Vavilov center|enabled farming to begin]] in Papua New Guinea.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Denham |first1=T. P. |last2=Haberle |first2=S.G. |last3=Lentfer |first3=C. |last4=Fullagar |first4=R. |last5=Field |first5=J. |last6=Therin |first6=M. |last7=Porch |first7=N. |last8=Winsborough |first8=B. |year=2003 |title=Origins of Agriculture at Kuk Swamp in the Highlands of New Guinea |journal=Science |volume=301 |issue=301 (5630) |pages=189–193 |doi=10.1126/science.1085255 |jstor=3834782|pmid=12817084 }}</ref>