People of the valley: the Dani

The highlands of New Guinea have been inhabited for over 24,000 years, and have evolved some of the most distinctive and long-isolates societies of the world. High in the centre of west Papua, lies the Balim Valley, a wide temperature plain overlooked by 4800 mere high mountains which, though by four degrees south of the equator, bear lacier. The valley is inhabited by Dani, some 183,000 people who only came into sustained contact with the outside world in the 1950s.