Ancient Skulls Give Insights into Origins of Polynesians

Due to an analysis of the oldest-known cemetery in the South Pacific, the long-standing debate over the origins and ancestry of Polynesians may finally be resolved. A group of scientists, who studied a set of skulls from a 3,000-year-old cemetery in Vanuatu, believe that they may have unlocked a vital clue to the origins of Polynesian people.

The excavations took place between 2004 and 2010. A team from the Australian National University's (ANU) school of archeology and anthropology in 2004 discovered the oldest known cemetery in the South Pacific, at Teouma, just outside the capital of Port Vila, Vanuatu. The cemetery belongs to the first known culture in Vanuatu and Polynesia, called the Lapita culture.

Before they published the results of their research, they spent over seven years analyzing their discovery. The results of the analyses were recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The report says that the shape and contours of the earliest skull in the 3,000-year-old burial ground in Vanuatu suggests a starting point for the great Polynesian migration.