New clues shed light on ‘pivotal’ moment in the great Pacific migration

One of the most significant migrations in human history was the peopling of the Pacific. Archeologists say the discovery of an archaeological site on a small island could explain the migration east three millennia ago.

The discovery of animal bones and tools on the island suggests that the migration of the Lapita people throughout the island was more extensive than previously thought.

The first people to make landfall on the islands of Remote Oceania were the Lapita, a group of people with east Asian ancestry.

Humans island-hopped to settle in the Pacific.

They are thought to have migrated there from south-east Asia around 3,100 and 3,350 years ago.

Animals such as pigs and chickens, as well as pottery and Austronesian languages, have been introduced to New Guinea by Lapita-linked groups.

Archaeologists believe they have found the earliest evidence of Lapita-introduced animals in southern New Guinea, in a new research published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. They think the findings are between 3,060 and 3,480 years old.

The first author of the study, Dr Ben Shaw of the Australian National University, said the discovery was proof of the initial interaction between Indigenous populations and Lapita migrants.

Shaw said there were other changes to social systems on the island at that time.

Shaw said that this is a new signature in archaeology in this area.

The researchers argue that the interaction with Indigenous populations was crucial in influencing island-hopping strategies.

Rapid but later Lapita dispersals through southern New Guinea and perhaps across the Torres Strait Islands and along the east coast of Australia were probably the result of earlier frontier interactions with Indigenous populations.

Evidence was found for the introduction of pigs and dogs by Lapita, which was accompanied by concurrent changes in behavior such as the use of turtle shells to make tools, and the targeted harvesting of marine animals.

The contemporary presence of lithic axe-adze technologies unrelated to those associated with Lapita suggests that Indigenous cultural influences contributed to cultural diversity in the region.

Shaw said that most of the islands of the country are spoken by the Lapita groups.

There was a complete changeover from the Indigenous languages that would have happened on these islands.