Author: Natasha Frost / Source: Atlas Obscura
Around 3,000 years ago, humans came to shore on the archipelago of Vanuatu for the first time. An ancient seafaring people spilled out of their boats and onto the land, planted their feet in the white sand, and decided that these 83 islands, scattered across 800 miles of the Pacific Ocean, would be home.
But who they were, and where they came from, has puzzled researchers. The islanders’ genetic ancestry suggests an origin point of what is now Papua New Guinea—but their Austronesian languages tell a different story, instead finding their roots in southeast Asia.Now, however, two studies recently published in Current Biology and Nature Ecology & Evolution suggest possible backstories for these early settlers, using DNA sequences from the remains of around a dozen ancient inhabitants of Vanuatu and nearby islands.
What seems near-certain, the studies agree, is that Vanuatu’s earliest settlers came from what is now Taiwan, a journey of over 4,000 miles. They were members of the Lapita culture who first left Taiwan around 5,000 years ago on specialized outrigger canoes that carried farming technology and Austronesian languages everywhere from Madagascar to Easter Island. Around 500 years…
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