Vanuatu's location
Vanuatu is located in the western Part of the South Pacific Ocean, part of the Melanesian archipelago, consisting of 83 islands, belonging to the "Lapita culture" in prehistory.
This culture is dominated by sand-filled pottery with various patterns, and the unique geometric design on the toothed pottery is very similar to the pottery from the archaeological site of Nagsabaran in Luzon in northern Philippines. Settlements and pottery tablets date back about 3,000 years, and more than 200 Lapita sites have been discovered. From Vanuatu and Melanesia to Fiji and Tonga, the range is more than 4,000 kilometers, reaching Samoa in the east.
The vast majority of their material and cultural connotations originate in Southeast Asia. These include pottery, crops, rice field farming, domestic animals, rectangular stilt houses, tattoo chisels, four-pointed hammers, polished stone chisels, outrigger techniques, trolling hooks and a variety of other stonework.
Their economy is based on the cultivation of root crops and tree crops, most importantly taro, yam, coconut, banana and bread fruit, but also raises pigs, dogs and chickens to fish and buy and sell obsidian and wood supplements.
Distribution range of the Lapita culture
The debate over the origins of Pacific Islanders has continued for centuries, particularly with regard to the Lapitas. Early scholars have found linguistically that the languages spoken by Pacific islanders are related to the languages of Southeast Asia or Taiwan, but they are distinctly close to Papuans in terms of physical characteristics such as skin color than Southeast Asia or Taiwan, which has always been confusing.
Later, through genetic research, these islanders mainly contained Papua and Austronesian components (Taiwanese aboriginal components). Therefore, it is suggested that ancient immigrants from Taiwan first passed through Papua New Guinea when they arrived in Oceania, and when they first came to Vanuatu, they already had Papua ancestry.
However, the latest research overturns this theory, and these earliest inhabitants of Vanuatu did not have Papua ancestry. The researchers made the discovery after DNA analysis of bone samples excavated from the Lapita Cultural Cemetery on the oldest known Pacific Island near Port Vila, Vanuatu.
Data on 19 ancient individuals
New research shows that about 3,000 years ago, the first people from Taiwan or the northern Philippines reached Vanuatu via the Bismarck Islands. But they did not and did not pass through the Solomon Islands, and when they arrived in Vanuatu, there was no one there, they were the first inhabitants of Vanuatu, basically Asian in descent.
Hundreds of years later, about 2500 years ago, a new wave of immigrants arrived. This group of immigrants has a high Papuan ancestry and is almost entirely Papuan. In the vanuatu ancient site, researchers found the existence of individuals of almost entirely Papua descent about 2300 years ago, which is interpreted as evidence that "the population is replaced".
Scholars speculate that when the second group of people of high Papua descent arrived, the descendants of the first Vanuatu retreated to some parts of the archipelago, but later mixed with the Papua settlers.
A team of researchers co-led by Cosimo, a paleogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, believes that the number of Papuans mixed with the early inhabitants is increasing. Another team member, Heidi, said: "There was no such great boom at that time, and the Papuans came in and killed everyone. Vanuatu's modern linguistic features support their hypothesis, he said. Australian linguist Andrew is skeptical of this interpretation. In addition, men from some groups in Vanuatu traditionally wear an organ sheath, a practice that is also common in Papua New Guinea.
The third group of people, whose ancestry origins were more diverse, spread widely to the more distant Polynesian region, presumably the direct ancestors of today's Polynesians.
Reference:
Language continuity despite population replacement in Remote Ocean ( 2018 )
Population Turnover in Remote Oceania Shortly after Initial Settlement（2018）
Today's Vanuatu people
Today's Vanuatu people
Today's Vanuatu people