In 1977, it was my great good fortune to be part of professor Jack Golson's multi-disciplinary team during the field season at Kuk Station. My husband, Art Rohn (North American anthropologist/prehistorian) and myself (cartographer) were visiting Australia for a year's sabbatical where we became friends with Jack Golson and faculty members at Australia National University and Sydney University.

I left cartography and archaeology years ago to pursue other interests. But Kuk left such an indelible stamp on me that for years I searched the Internet for mentions of the site. There were only a few papers on Kuk, one citing our work there. However, since Kuk's inclusion as a World Heritage Site in 2008, all manner of Kuk publications abound.

Kuk remains one of the most happy and vibrant memories in a life thus far liberally sprinkled with adventure. Imagine how exciting it was for a young woman of 34 to contribute to what would become one of the most important continuously cultivated agrarian sites in the world. I remember vividly how my husband at the time, Art Rohn, offered his vast expertise to help interpret what Kuk was all about.

The excavations, of course, were paramount to this multi-disciplinary interpretation. At first I used the previous mapping techniques, increasingly aware of their inability to represent sometimes amorphous features without diffinitive boundaries. One evening we sat around the dinner table, in one of the 2 stilt houses we called camp, hashing over better ways to map the mounds and valleys which were part of the intricate gardening system. I believe (though time may have dulled my memory) that it was in fact I who suggested we use a rather primitive mapping instrument called a "leaf alidade", a very simple brass siting device, to fashion a series of contour maps. All agreed this was a good idea and so Jack sent for such an instrument, delivered by the next visitor from ANU.

I would go out daily with my helper, one of the indigenous highlanders perhaps all of five feet tall, before the rains came to drive us back to camp. I stood at the map table sighting a string attached to a plumbob which Ku held over the features. I drew a line and then extended a tape to measure distance, marking each with a dot on the map. Height was determined by sighting a measuring rod. From the field maps with thousands of points and elevations, Art looked over the actual features, turned to the map and connect the dots of similar elevation.

At the end of the season (10-12 weeks?) we had some 15-20? field maps, most with a contour interval of 2cm. Yes, 2cm. I received permission to keep copies of some of the originals which are still in my possession.

It is these maps which appear in Jack Golson's original monograph and several subsequent publications. I believe they capture the essence of these features as well as could be done at the time, prior to sophisticated computer techniques now in practice.

Experiencing Kuk, Mt. Hagan, the Upper Waghi Valley, with Mt. Okka an active volcano looming in the distance, was like being part of a National Geographic special. The natives were so startled by my fair hair and light skin, I felt like the Queen of England! I loved one occasion when I was entrusted with driving our native workers home in our Land Rover. They sang and chewed beetlenut the entire way, perched on the bonnet and running boards. Even the acrid smell of their sweat seemed like perfume to this romantic American.

One day on the dig Jack was approached by a Big Man (tribal leader) who told Jack that the native workers would not be able to work the next morning on account of the fact that they had to avenge a sorcery killing of one of their pigs. All turned out well. No one was hurt when the local constabulary broke things up and the workers returned to the dig that afternoon. But Payback was regularly practiced as was Bride Price Exchange. Keener is PNG currency based on shells of the same name. But a bloke could still sell a couple of pigs to buy a ticket and fly to Port Moresby.

Only wish I could post some of the photos from my time at Kuk and in the Western Highlands taken by Ed Harris, a member of our team, and Paul Goretski(sp?)a visiting student from Sydney University.

I remain most grateful to Jack Golson and others who made my experience possible.