What are the origins of enset agriculture?
Given the restricted geographic distribution of domesticated enset and the degrees of complexity and variability in contemporary enset agricultural systems, agronomists and biogeographers have long considered the Ethiopian highlands to be the primary center of origin for enset agriculture (Harlan, 1969 and 1992; Sauer, 1952; Vavilov, 1951). Anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, and other scholars have also developed theories that argue for the domestication of enset in Ethiopia as early as 10,000 years ago. Stiehler (1948), one of the first scholars to consider enset origins, believed that the indigenous hunter/gatherers of southern Ethiopia were the first to cultivate enset. He also proposed that enset agriculture was later introduced to the northern Ethiopian highlands by Cushitic-speaking peoples, only to be replaced by such crops as wheat, barley, and t’eff following the migration of Semitic-speaking groups into northern Ethiopia. In a similar vein, Murdock (1959) suggested
