Beagle wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TongaArchaeological 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