Dr Ben Shaw (top, centre) with researchers from PNG and Australia at the survey site on Brooker Island.Credit: Photo: Supplied
Posted on 05/23/2022 9:22:49 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
The discovery of pottery from the ancient Lapita culture by researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) has shed new light on how Papua New Guinea (PNG) served as a launching pad for the colonization of the Pacific—one of the greatest migrations in human history.
The new study makes clear the initial expansion of the Lapita people throughout PNG was far greater than previously thought.
The study... is based on the discovery of a distinctive Lapita pottery sherd, a broken piece of pottery with sharp edges, on Brooker Island (200km east of mainland PNG) in 2017 that lead researcher Dr. Ben Shaw said was "like finding a needle in a haystack".
"Lapita cultural groups were the first people to reach the remote Pacific islands such as Vanuatu around 3,000 years ago, but in PNG where people have lived for at least 50,000 years, the timing and extent of Lapita dispersals are poorly understood," Dr. Shaw said...
Lapita people introduced pottery to PNG that had distinct markings, and they also introduced new tool technologies and animals such as pigs. Through archaeological, linguistic and genetic research, it is now well understood that the first Pacific peoples migrated from an ancestral Asian homeland.
Later Lapita dispersals through PNG and interaction with indigenous populations profoundly influenced the region as a global center of cultural and linguistic diversity...
Dr. Shaw said Lapita people colonized the Pacific islands 3,000 years ago. He said this paper explains why they colonized the islands at this time and the role indigenous populations in New Guinea had in Lapita decisions to look for new islands to live on...
The research involved many ANU researchers and international collaborators who showed how migration pathways and island-hopping strategies culminated in rapid and purposeful Pacific-wide settlement.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
Dr Ben Shaw (top, centre) with researchers from PNG and Australia at the survey site on Brooker Island.Credit: Photo: Supplied
This is from a previous group of browser tabs that I'd not got to. There's one about the Vikings, and a bunch about (you guessed it) climate change.
Later Lapita dispersals through PNG and interaction with indigenous populations profoundly influenced the region as a global center of cultural and linguistic diversity...
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Aren’t colonist bad?
Oooh, 20 years old, FRchives topic.
You know what caused these migration waves.
Chief marries a Karen.
Everyone hustles to find another place to be at.
If the population migrated there, aren’t they by definition not indigenous? My family migrated to north america a half millenia ago, am I indigenous?
The weather was nice?
RE: Discovery sheds light on why Pacific islands were colonized
HUH?
I thought it was because evil Europeans wanted to enslave the indigenous people, rape their women and steal their resources.
Sarc/
Kimi naka loa sama hili?
Colonized meaning 3,000 years ago? Ok.
Fiji? The Brits colonized the place. They thought so little of the natives they imported folks from one of their other colonies-India-to serve them. Fast forward. Brits are gone and the Indians(Siks, Hindus, Moozlem’s) outnumber the locals so in a democracy guess who holds the power? The result was a military coup. Where do the Indians go? Certainly not India.
Then there is Paul Gauguin. His offspring (with bigger noses) are all over Tahiti’s outer islands. Don’t know if he was successful while alive but one his biggest vices included underage girls. Knocked up a whole lotta them. Everyone was poor and naive enough to accept intermarried offspring. He took advantage before everyone wised up.
Samoa. 2 islands, same people. What used to be called ‘Western’ is now independent. New Zealand free. American Samoa is not free of he US. It’s our chi-chis.
Leave it to the westerners to screw things up. Can’t leave people alone. Capitalism? Missionaries saving people. That part mighta worked. Lotsa churches.
So Cut off our Samoa. Make them one country and while we’re at it restore the Hawaiian monarchy. Eliminate statehood. Fire the 2 senators. A win times 3(or 4?).
"Here am I your special island, Come to me, Come to me."Bali Hai - South Pacific (1958) | June 1, 2014 | ClassicTheatreHouse
I wonder if they made it all the way to South America.
Easter Island’s first (known) colonization was from South America. The Polynesians came later, and it may be that they arrived from the east, rather than the north or west.
His works are worth a lot of money.
I am aware of that. Been to his museum.
Who wouldn’t want to live in a tropical paradise?
what I find most profoundly interesting is that the lapita people developed cross ocean strategies within centuries of the europeans.
they had no contact with each other across deep time. yet their problem solving enabled them both to arrive at the same points across the globe within centuries of each other.
Its almost as if there were a genetic prime directive built in to the human race.
something similar would happen if when we go out to the distant stars—we meet an alien race also making the same transit.
This would suggest that a similar impulse and a similar timing pushed us both out to the stars.
Again something in the genes or the universe itself.
The thought here is almost too deep for me to contemplate.
Sort of like a tv show I saw recently that explained that the speed of light is a misnomer. Its actually the speed of causality—or perhaps the maximum speed of causality.
I can say that. But I don’t really understand what I’ve said.
Maybe it was from a bottle with a note in it.
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