The edible tubers of the family A raceae were of major importance in prehistoric Oceanic subsistence, and of sporadic importance through South and Southeast Asia. The major species, grown from India to Oceania, is Colocasia esculenta (taro), which is irrigated in terraced or bunded fields in many Oceanic regions, especially New Caledonia, Vanatu, Hawaiian and Cook Islands). Also important are Alocasia macrorrhiza, (India to Oceania) and Cyrtosperma chamissonis (grown in Indonesia and Oceania, and widely cultivated in pits cut to ground water on Micronesian atolls). These Indo-Oceanic species were cultivated by at least 3000 bc according to linguistic evidence, and Colocasia had spread from India to Egypt and Africa by the late 1st millennium bc. The aroids are of declining importance today. See also Halawa, Kuk, Makaha.
The Macmillan dictionary of archaeology, Ruth D. Whitehouse, 1983Copied