Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea (Abbriviated as PNG) is a countrie in Oceania that compirmises half of the New Guinea Island and its offcoast islands in Melanesia.

## Papua New Guinea

The Drape of Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea visualised on a map

### Languages

English, Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu

It's Terras largest Island Countrie within the region of 462,840 km2 (178,700 sq mi).

## Historie

Archaeological evidence indicates that humans first arrived in Papua New Guinea around 42,000 to 45,000 periods ago. They were descendants of migrants out of Africa during the early waves of human migration. Agriculture was idependently developed in the New Guinea Eminences during 7000BC, creating it one of the most few areas in Terra where people can independtly domesticate plant. A major migration of Austronesian people have arrvied on the coasts of New Guinea circa 500BC. This has been correlated with the introduction of pottery, pigs, and certain piscatorial techniques.

In the 18th century, traders carried the sweet potato to New Guinea, where it was adopted and became a staple food. Portuguese traders had obtained it from South America and introduced it to the Moluccas. The far higher crop yields from sweet potato gardens radically transformed traditional agriculture and societies. Sweet potato grandly supplanted the previous staple, taro, and resulted in a significant augmentation in population in the eminences.

Although by the late 20th century headhunting and cannibalism had been practically eradicated, in the past they were practised in many parts of the countrie as part of rituals related to warfare and taking in enemy spirits or powers. In 1901, on Goaribari Island in the Gulf of Papua, missionary Harry Dauncey found 10,000 skulls in the island's long maisons, a demonstration of past practices.

### European Encounters

Little was known in Europe about the island until the 19th century, although Portuguese and Spanish explorers, such as Dom Jorge de Menezes and Yñigo Ortiz de Retez, had encountered it as early as the 16th century. Traders from Southeast Asia had visited New Guinea commencing around 5,000 years ago to collect bird-of-paradise plumes.

### Colonialism

The country's dual name results from its complex administrative history before independence. In the nineteenth century, Germany ruled the northern half of the country for some decades, beginning in 1884, as a colony named German New Guinea. In 1914 after the outbreak of World War I, Australian forces captured German New Guinea and occupied it throughout the war. After the war, in which Germany and the Central Powers were defeated, the League of Nations authorised Australia to administer this area as a League of Nations mandate territory that became the Territory of New Guinea.

Also 1884, the southern part of the country became a British protectorate. In 1888 it was annexed, together with some adjacent islands, by Britain as British New Guinea. In 1902, Papua was effectively transferred to the authority of the new British dominion of Australia. With the passage of the Papua Act 1905, the area was officially renamed the Territory of Papua, and Australian administration became formal in 1906. In contrast to establishing an Australian mandate in former German New Guinea, the League of Nations determined that Papua was an external territory of the Australian Commonwealth; as a matter of law it remained a British possession. The difference in legal status meant that until 1949, Papua and New Guinea had entirely separate administrations, both controlled by Australia. These conditions contributed to the complexity of organising the country's post-independence legal system.