The dynamics of divergent agricultural and subsistence histories in the eastern and western highlands provide the necessary foundation upon which to build a comparative analysis of the ethnographic present in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. In the previous chapter, a differing emphasis on, and intensity of, warfare, east to west, was related to the relative presence or absence of effective means and valued intergroup relations to control and subdue it. Few, if any, such mechanisms or important relations exist in the eastern highlands. Warfare, is thus fierce and endemic. Small, localised descent groups are tightly bounded and united, and extragroup contacts of any kind count for very little. Recent permanent settlement and a shallow agricultural past, linked to an inconsequential concern with pig production, are key variables in what ethnographers of the region have unanimously described as a high priority given to warfare and aggression in a context void of accepted and alternative methods of social control between groups. In the western highlands, by contrast, transactions and exchanges of pigs (and other valuables) based on an ancient commitment to their intensified production, this being reliant on a similarly ancient intensified agricultural regime, provided the means demanded by sedentary, populous and proximate groups for a measure of security and political stability.