Pygmies & Papuans: The Stone Age To-Day in Dutch New Guinea

In 1910, a young British ornithologist joined an expedition into the unmapped wilderness of Dutch New Guinea, chasing two impossible goals: to collect specimens from the island's hidden valleys and to climb a mountain no human had ever reached. A.F.R. Wollaston and his party pushed through dense jungle and climbed into the surreal alpine zone above the clouds, ultimately reaching within 150 meters of Carstensz Pyramid's summit, a peak that would remain unconquered for another fifty years. The narrative weaves between rigorous scientific observation and raw adventure. Wollaston documents his encounters with Papuan communities and the island's diminutive inhabitants, capturing their lives with an anthropologist's precision while grappling with the challenges of first contact. The book stands as a remarkable artifact from the golden age of exploration, a time when vast territories remained completely unknown to Western science and a single expedition could rewrite what humanity knew about the natural world.