[news] Face of ancient Fiji shows Pacific's past
Face of ancient Fiji shows Pacific's past
Reuters
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=1029646
Aug. 11, 2005 - Three thousand years of history came to life on Thursday
when scientists unveiled the face of one of the first people to settle Fiji at
the start of the colonization of the Pacific Ocean's far-flung islands.
Pacific islanders were given the first realistic glimpse of what one of
their ancestors looked like after researchers from Fiji and Japan were able to
construct a representation of the face of a 3,000-year-old female skeleton.
"It's not a discovery that is simply significant for Fiji, it's significant
for all Pacific islands," said project leader Patrick Nunn of the University
of the South Pacific (USP) in the Fijian capital, Suva.
While their discovery did not challenge accepted theories about how the
Pacific was settled, the result of their work did cause some surprises because
the face of the woman they have named "Mana" bore little or no resemblance
to modern Fijians.
"It's more 'Gosh, look at our ancestors!'," Nunn said.
"I have a research assistant from the Philippines and the two of them side-
by-side look almost identical," he told Reuters by telephone from Suva.
Tall and muscular, Mana was about 50 when she died, about 15 years older
than the average islander's life span 3,000 years ago. She was probably
right-handed and had given birth to at least one child.
Mana was about 164 cm (5 ft 4 in) tall, her skeleton suggested a life of
strenuous physical activity and her teeth were stained dark brown, probably
from chewing the roots of the kava plant.
"She was very healthy, she had a big body, she had well-developed muscles
and there was no signs of bone degeneration. It was mainly only the teeth that
were pretty awful," Nunn said.
Nunn and his USP team found the skeleton and pieces of distinctive pottery
in the tiny settlement of Naitabale on the island of Moturiki, just to the
east of Fiji's main island of Viti Levu, in 2002.
The skeleton was sent to Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute,
where computer modeling was used to reconstruct Mana's face from her well-
preserved skull.
Mana was one of the Lapita people, who lived between 1,350 and 650 BC and were
the first colonisers of what are now known as Papua New Guinea, the Solomon
Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.
"They are certainly the ancestors of many indigenous people living in the
other Pacific islands, including Hawaii and New Zealand," Nunn said.
"These people came from Southeast Asia, possibly from what we now call
Taiwan and southern China," he said.
Nunn said Mana -- which means "truth" in a Solomon Islands dialect -- was
probably from the first or second generation of Lapita to reach Fiji.
He said Mana had been buried wearing an elaborate head-dress, meaning she
was probably of a high tribal rank.
Copyright 2005 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may
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