• to document resources used in material culture, to complement dietary studies and to enable broad assessment of the resource base in subsistence economies.
• to complement studies of resource management, and thereby achieve a comprehensive assessment of subsistence strategies.
• to establish the relevance of material culture for studies in human ecology.

Project Description

This on-going project emerged from my doctoral field research in Krisa, Papua New Guinea, during which I systematically assembled a museum collection, complemented by an herbarium collection to enable botanical identification of vegetal components in the artefacts. Both collections involve extensive ethnobotanical documentation, and are part of larger ethnobotanical and material culture inventories. Together, the inventories allowed me to assess local resource use, which in turn permitted focussed exploration of local management practices. Synoptic analysis of resource use and management then enabled me to identify local subsistence strategies.

Ethnobotanical collections of material culture play a key role in human ecological studies, as they provide permanent records of resource use, cover a large spectrum of resources, and support the elicitation of ethnobotanical knowledge. Although so far limited to Krisa, I plan to extend this mode of analysis to the Kikori region, and to historical museum collections from both sites.

Research Output

Klappa, S. 1999. Material culture collection with ethnobotanical focus (Krisa): 639 numbered items; deposited respectively at the South Australian Museum in Adelaide (75%), the Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery (12%) and the Economic Botany Collection of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew (13%).

Klappa, S. 1997–1999. Ethnobotanical herbarium collection (Krisa): 152 numbered voucher specimens; deposited at the Herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and awaiting identification.

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