Sugarcane was an ancient crop of the Austronesian and Papuan people. The best evidence available today points to the New Guinea area as the site of the original domestication of Saccharum officinarum.[3] It was introduced to Polynesia, Island Melanesia, and Madagascar in prehistoric times via Austronesian sailors. It was also introduced by Austronesian sailors to India and then to Southern China by 500 BC, via trade. The Persians and Greeks found "that reeds in India yield honey without bees", as said by Strabo, between the sixth and fourth centuries BC[4]. They adopted and then spread sugarcane agriculture.[5] By the eighth century, sugar was considered a luxurious and expensive spice from India, and merchant trading spread its use across the Mediterranean and North Africa. In the 18th century, sugarcane plantations began in the Caribbean, South American, Indian Ocean, and Pacific island nations. The need for sugar crop laborers became a major driver of large migrations, some people voluntarily accepting indentured servitude[6] and others forcibly imported as slaves.[7]