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Prehistoric sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) from Mangaia Island, Central Polynesia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Jon Hather  and
P. V. Kirch
Jon Hather
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University of London, 31–4 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, England
P. V. Kirch
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley CA 94720, USA
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Information
Antiquity , Volume 65 , Issue 249 , December 1991 , pp. 887 - 893
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1991

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Footnotes

The early history of the sweet potato in the Pacific is important, for its large subsistence rôle. It is also peculiar, from its American origin, and it is also recalcitrant, because vegetables with tubers are so much less visible archaeologically than are grains and seeds. Here is an important identification of sweet potato in the prehistory of Polynesia.

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