They were the people who first explored and settled the Pacific islands, sailing initially beyond the big islands of the Solomons out through Vanuatu, New Caledonia, to Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. Archaeologists know them as the Lapita, who lived thousands of years ago.
The Samoan capital, Apia has just hosted a major Lapita Pacific Archaeological meeting, bringing together international and regional experts.
The first people arrived and settled in the Pacific between 1200BC and 1000BC, moving from Melanesia to the Western Pacific including Polynesia, to countries like Tonga and Samoa.
Janet Davidson, a New Zealand archaeologist who attended the conference , told Radio Australia's Pacific Beat the most exciting thing for her was that the whole conference was run by the Institute or Samoan Studies.
Independent Samoa also now has a course where undergraduate students can study archaeology two years, hopefully to be extended to three years.
Mr Davidson said it was important for Pacific Islanders to know more about their past in terms of archaeology because "people have thought that their own traditions are their past.
"And that has always been and continues to be really important.
"But the archaeological research enables them to see perhaps their culture in a world context, rather than just a Pacific context, because there is exciting information about the way that the Pacific Islands were settled and the development of big monuments, great stone mounds and so on.
"Archaeologists everywhere else in the world are interested in how people settled the Pacific and how they develop their distinctive modern cultures and this parallels the traditions and stories that the people themselves have always had."
Author: Caroline Tiriman | Source: ABC - Radio Australia News [July 04, 2011]
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| A 3,000-year-old burial site in Vanuatu containing 60 headless skeletons and skulls in pots is helping end the mystery over colonization of the Pacific and the first Polynesians [Credit: Reuters/Stuart Bedford] |
The first people arrived and settled in the Pacific between 1200BC and 1000BC, moving from Melanesia to the Western Pacific including Polynesia, to countries like Tonga and Samoa.
Janet Davidson, a New Zealand archaeologist who attended the conference , told Radio Australia's Pacific Beat the most exciting thing for her was that the whole conference was run by the Institute or Samoan Studies.
Independent Samoa also now has a course where undergraduate students can study archaeology two years, hopefully to be extended to three years.
Mr Davidson said it was important for Pacific Islanders to know more about their past in terms of archaeology because "people have thought that their own traditions are their past.
"And that has always been and continues to be really important.
"But the archaeological research enables them to see perhaps their culture in a world context, rather than just a Pacific context, because there is exciting information about the way that the Pacific Islands were settled and the development of big monuments, great stone mounds and so on.
"Archaeologists everywhere else in the world are interested in how people settled the Pacific and how they develop their distinctive modern cultures and this parallels the traditions and stories that the people themselves have always had."
Author: Caroline Tiriman | Source: ABC - Radio Australia News [July 04, 2011]