Let's Send FT to Check it Out!

[Minimalist]

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/s2135615.htm

Canadian archaeologist has identified a small fishing village in Tonga, established nearly 3,000 years ago, as the birthplace of Polynesia.

Matangi Tonga online reports that Professor David Burley drew his conclusion from his final excavation at Nukuleka, east of the capital Nuku'alofa, six months ago when they found pieces of Lapita pottery.

"The big pieces of pottery are about 2,900 years old," he said.

"Tonga was the first group of islands in Polynesia to be settled by the Lapita People about 3,000 years ago, and Nukuleka was their first settlement in Tonga," professor Burley told Matangi Tonga online.

Professor Burley and his team say they have made their conclusions based on the designs of the pottery and carbon dating of samples.

"What we are trying to prove is that this is the first site in Tonga, and everything that we have found verifies that," he said.

Stuff NZ reports that the discovery is a blow to surrounding Pacific countries, including Samoa and Fiji, which have claimed to be the 'cradle' of Polynesia.

[Rokcet Scientist]

What?
Are you nuts?
I'm volunteering to go research the vahines! And I don't want FT within a 1,000 miles, thank you!

[Sam Salmon]

A bizarre little place the present-day Kingdom of Tonga-more than you might believe.


As to early settlement both the main island of Tongatapu and the northern archipelago of Vava'u show signs of being long inhabited by humans.

[Beagle]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonga

Archaeological evidence shows that the first settlers in Tonga sailed from the Santa Cruz Islands, as part of the original Austronesian-speakers' (Lapita) migration which originated out of S.E. Asia some 6,000 years ago. Archaeological dating places Tonga as the oldest known site in Polynesia for the distinctive Lapita ceramic ware, at 2,800–2,750 years ago. The "Lapita" people lived and sailed, traded, warred, and intermarried in the islands now known as Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji for 1,000 years, before more explorers set off towards the east to discover the Marquesas, Tahiti, and eventually the rest of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. For this reason, Tonga, Samoa and Fiji are described by anthropologists as the cradle of Polynesian culture and civilization.

It looks like this most recent discovery bumps out Samoa and Fiji.

[Sam Salmon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonga

Archaeological evidence shows that the first settlers in Tonga sailed from the Santa Cruz Islands, as part of the original Austronesian-speakers' (Lapita) migration which originated out of S.E. Asia some 6,000 years ago. Archaeological dating places Tonga as the oldest known site in Polynesia for the distinctive Lapita ceramic ware, at 2,800–2,750 years ago. The "Lapita" people lived and sailed, traded, warred, and intermarried in the islands now known as Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji for 1,000 years, before more explorers set off towards the east to discover the Marquesas, Tahiti, and eventually the rest of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. For this reason, Tonga, Samoa and Fiji are described by anthropologists as the cradle of Polynesian culture and civilization.

It looks like this most recent discovery bumps out Samoa and Fiji.

Not necessarily, it's a big ocean and a lot of people were moving about.

ANTHROPOLOGIST QUESTIONS TONGA ‘CRADLE’ THEORY

MELBOURNE, Australia (Radio Australia, Jan. 11) – A Tongan social anthropologist says the basis on which researchers have named a small Tongan fishing village as the birthplace of Polynesia, is shaky.

Canadian archaeologist Professor David Burley and his team identified Nukuleka, east of the capital Nuku'alofa, as the cradle of Polynesia - after finding Lapita pottery, the oldest yet discovered in Polynesia and dated at 2,900 years old.

But Dr Okusitino Mahina, a Tongan-born Pacific anthropologist based at Auckland University, says the scientists didn't consider oral and linguistic history, or early maps - which describe Polynesia as, literally, many islands.

He says Professor Burley's suggestion that Nukuleka must be the cradle of all Polynesia because of the discovery of the oldest piece of pottery yet found in Tonga, is not sufficient proof.

"He needs to work in cooperation with other people in other areas, social anthropology, linguistic, oral historians, artists - he cannot go it alone," Dr Mahina said.

http://pidp.eastwestcenter.org/pireport ... -14-14.htm

[Beagle]

"He needs to work in cooperation with other people in other areas, social anthropology, linguistic, oral historians, artists - he cannot go it alone," Dr Mahina said.

Hmm... I think he makes a valid point.

[kbs2244]

But Beagle!
All that stuff is "soft." Nothing you can touch, photgraph.
"social anthropology" Isn't all Anthropolgy "social?"
"linguistic" The Americian language has changed in my lifetime.
"oral historians" Myths and Legends?
"artists" In whose eyes? Trained? By who? Untrained? Well they are "untrained."
Maybe Dr Mahina dosn't like an outsider in his pond.
I think some ones ego is hurt.

[Beagle]

I like hard evidence too KB. But if an artifact doesn't fit into the rest of the "big picture", then it's regarded as anomalous. Too often anomolous evidence is then ignored - forever.

If I understand what the other guy is saying, he thinks the discoverer of the pottery should continue with his excavation and study 'till he can support his conclusions a little better. That's good science.

And I hate it when "anomolous" finds get shelved and ignored.

[Beagle]

http://www.canada.com/topics/technology/story.html?id=9e5441f6-e9db-4166-89bc-212122d85ded&k=43780

A Canadian archeologist's discoveries in the South Pacific kingdom of Tonga are rewriting the history of a vast portion of Oceania and tracing the common origins of a host of island peoples -- including Hawaiians, Tahitians, Samoans and New Zealand's Maoris -- to a remote peninsula that he believes was once the site of a large and lasting "capital" of ancient Polynesia.

Simon Fraser University's David Burley says his latest finds from the Nukuleka archeological site on one of Tonga's southern islands shows it was the principal "founding settlement" of Polynesia about 2,800 years ago, and endured long enough for a genetically and culturally distinctive people to evolve and begin spreading across the immense "Polynesian triangle" bounded by Hawaii in the north, New Zealand in the southwest and fabled Easter Island in the far southeast, not far from the coast of South America.

Burley's finds at Nukuleka first made headlines in 2001 after he published a study showing it was the oldest archeological site in Polynesia. Elaborately decorated pottery shards recovered from a layer of shoreline nearly 3,000 years old indicated it was the earliest known encampment by ocean voyagers from ancient Melanesia - the Pacific island group to the west that includes New Guinea, Fiji and New Caledonia.

Some more to the story.