Papuan

The Papuan peoples include those of the Bismarck Archipelago as well as New Guinea. Their roughly 800 languages fall into perhaps sixty small families with unclear relationships, and Papuan is only a geographical label for languages that are not Austronesian. Their ancestors developed one of the earliest agricultures, leaving ancient irrigation systems in the highlands.

Europeans first sighted the island in the 1520s, when Jorge de Menezes named it ilhas dos Papuas, and Íñigo Ortiz de Retes named it New Guinea in 1545. In the west the Sultans of Tidore claimed the coast, while the highland interior remained unknown to Europeans.