The Tifalmin: A ‘Neolithic’ people in New Guinea

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Abstract
The Tifalmin, a small tribal group of the central New Guinea mountains at the headwaters of the Sepik River, have a simple ‘neolithic’ culture based primarily on long‐fallow cultivation of taro, sweet potato and bananas. They keep domestic pigs, and hunting and collecting are important in their economy. Their material culture is described, weaving, pottery, basketry, matting, and bark‐cloth being absent; and their dependence on trade for certain essentials, especially stone adze‐blades and bow staves, is explained as being due to environmental factors. Finally the evidence for their culture which might survive to be found by a future archaeologist is discussed, and it is shown that such evidence would be not only incomplete, but also misleading.