If Kuk does get inscribed in 2008 it will be another case of a “near miss” for us I am afraid! We may well have flown over it when we took a light plane along the Waghi valley from Goroka to Mt Hagen (the site is a short distance NE of Mt Hagen airfield) but I wouldn’t claim that as “seen”! However, I wonder if it is really “seeable” by anyone other than archaeologists connected with the government or university research.

But we did achieve some “connection” with the site as we visited the JK McCarthy Museum in Goroka (This is the main "Highland Museum"). Its exterior is painted with a mural (Photo) depicting the early agriculturalists of the area (described in the museum as the “world’s first gardeners” or similar words! PNG is clearly, and rightly, proud of this historical development by its peoples). A section of the museum was devoted to the discovery at Kuk Swamp (which is situated further west near the town of Mt Hagen) of the remains of these early agricultural practices. Excavations have identified plant residues, stone implements and indications of ditch/mound building which show that, as long ago as 10000 years BP, there had been “agriculture” in the area based initially on taro and then, around 6500 years BP, involving bananas, sugar cane and yams. The dates are very significant because they indicate that these people in the Highlands of PNG were not recipients of the knowledge and skills for sedentary agricultural practices but must have developed them independently.

At the museum I was able to have an interesting conversation with one of the curators about the problems for a country like PNG in gaining inscription for one of its sites. They were getting help from ICOMOS but, what I call the “managerially based, Western oriented”, approach set out by UNESCO/ICOMOS for assessing sites had clearly caused many problems to PNG where such concepts are not well established and, in some cases, are not acceptable to the country’s culture. Land ownership and use was clearly a major problem – you only have to spend a few days in the highlands of PNG to realise just how important this is as a cultural issue. Even our progress around the area was impacted by several land-based disputes which prevented us from travelling as planned (though we did still visit a traditional village in the countryside outside Mt Hagen) and, on one occasion involved us requiring police protection – not for anything we had done but because of a dispute between the hotel we were staying at and the traditional “owners” of the land on which it was built. Three of our guides during the trip had family members or friends who had been involved in arson and even “murder” arising from Clan disputes – you got the impression that it was just a “way of life”. One guide said he would have to try to kill the driver with whom he was friends but who came from another clan if matters between the clans ever came to that!(A fascinating aspect of visiting tribal PNG is the way it makes one examine the assumptions of one's own society. Were the guide's "beliefs" on this matter much different from those of soldiers in the army of a "Nation State" who will kill for their country?). The Central Government and its western-based law system is often not brought into such matters which are solved instead in traditional ways with “Payback”. You can imagine the problems when, into this cultural milieu, are dropped Western heritage conservation concepts such as “buffer zones” and “management plans”! The local Kawelka people are not going to take kindly to being told what (and what not) to do with their land. I understand that a Research Station was closed down in the early 90s and the excavations covered over. The locals then moved in and there is concern about destruction of the historical remains. If you are interested you can get an idea of some of the issues and how the PNG government and UNESCO are handling them by searching for “Kuk” within this document from a 2007 UNITAR workshop on the "Management and Conservation of WHS"

It would be interesting to get a post on this site from an archaeologist who was involved in the excavations and/or the preparation of the inscription documentation – is it possible to visit the site (and under what conditions)? Is there anything to see? Are there any plans for improving visitor access? Etc, Etc. Or does this join the list of sites (see my review of the Omo Valley) which are archaeologically significant but where there is nothing to see!!