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A new research by scientists has provided insights about the lifestyle and origins of the mysterious Lapita people, ancestors of the present Polynesians and Melanesians.
Washington, Nov 4 : A new research by scientists has provided insights about the lifestyle and origins of the mysterious Lapita people, ancestors of the present Polynesians and Melanesians.
The research began after construction workers unearthed 60 skeletons at Teouma, an archaeological site on Éfaté Island, in 2003. The site in the South Pacific country of Vanuatu includes a skull in a jar and 60 headless skeletons.
After a new isotope analysis of the teeth left behind, researchers got new clues about this race. Isotopes are elements that have different masses, and analyzing their signatures can reveal the makeup of chemical compounds.
"We've finally got a good sample of the population," said excavation leader Stuart Bedford.
Scientists say that analysis of strontium and oxygen isotopes in the teeth prove that the Lapita were neither solely hunter-gatherers, as had been speculated, nor intensive farmers. Rather, they were a mix of the two.
"The isotope analyses are pretty much confirming a mixed diet," said Bedford. "We've got fish, pig, chicken, and cultivated plants like taro and banana," he added. The tests also returned evidence of a diet rich in wild-caught fish, flying foxes, and turtles
The Lapita are thought to have arrived on the island of New Guinea from Southeast Asia. They struck out across the central and southern Pacific shortly afterward, reaching the chain within 200 years. Their archaeological remains trace the migration and settlement of the race as far east as Tonga and Fiji within a few generations.
According to Bedford, the tests proved that four individuals were not born in the immediate area. This supports evidence for a rapid Lapita expansion eastward from the island of New Guinea around 3,000 years ago. The island is today split into provinces of Indonesia and the independent nation of Papua New Guinea.
But tow contrasting theories emerge about the Lapita.
"One is that they island-hopped, trashing local marine and indigenous fauna before moving on without too much gardening. The other holds that they came with a 'transported landscape', complete with pigs, chickens and dogs," said Bedford.
"Until now, we haven't had the skeletal remains to do a decent isotopic analysis to give us that data, but the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle," he added.
ANI
