The Rennell Islanders recognize two types of time concepts in their subsistence activities of agriculture. The first one is cyclic. The islanders divide the fallowland or secondary forest into some dozen stages. This folk category is based on the natural succession in the vegetation recovering process, and on the judgement of when to start the garden again. The second time concept is an historical one. The wild plants have continued to play an important role, alongside cultivation, in the subsistence. The island people gather or collect a considerable amount of wild roots, leaves and fruit from the surrounding fallowlands, especially in a time of famine (kanga kanga). Almost all of these plants are the relict crops which had been cultivated in an earlier era, as many oral traditions tell us. This time concept is concerned with the ordering of periods according to the historical notion of the Rennell Islanders themselves. These two types of time cognitions indicate a most basic idea about resource management under the condition of increasing population pressure on the land. An analysis of contemporary agricultural activities offers a new model for interpreting the adaptation process in the study of ethno-archaeology.

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