Fijan Pre-History :: Fiji History Culture Fijians Essays

Fijan Pre-HistoryThe most remarkable aspect of Fijian pre-history is its antiquity. It is now cognize that large number had reached the Fijian archipelago as early as 2000 historic period earlier the birth of Christ. Considering the fact that the Vikings, acknowledged as Europes undischargedest sailors, didnt reach American until three thousand years later, or the fact that Columbus make his famous voyage alone few five hundred years ago, the Fijian achievement must be seen as extraordinary. The question is, who were the first of all settlers. And the answer is that we dont know. There are some who are prepared to imagine and Dr Roger Green, Professor of Anthropology at Auckland University, in New Zealand is one of them. He calls this coarse archipelago Island of South East Asia. These migrants were relatively new, even though they were different from those of the people already living in the islands of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Hebrides (now Vanuatu) and N ew Caledonia. The first settlers were of Negrito memory board with dark skin, woolly hair and other typical features. The newcomers were fairer, had straight or wavy black hair and we can assume were of many type stock. they would seem to have been good sailors and craftsmen and excellent potters who made a straightforward type of ware we know as Lapita pottery after its sign discovery in New Caledonia. A picture emerges of these Lapita people. Sailors, adventurers, good navigators and arrant(a) craftsmen. The trail of their pots, hooks, obsidian cutting tools and ornaments leads down from New Britain through some of the outmost islands fringing the Solomons and Vanuatu, suggesting that perhaps they were not powerful enough to force settlements on the bigger islands which were already supporting large populations of people. In this classic difference mingled with the two groups we see the racial characteristics of what was later to be defined as Melanesian and Polynesian stoc k. The Melanesians were to retain their grip on the western island of the south peaceable but it can be fairly assumed that a great deal of the Lapita blood found its way into its main stream. At some stage, about 2000 years before the birth of Christ, a canoe unfold of adventurous Lapita sailors either deliberately set out to the east or were driven off course by a westerly leading and made landfall in the Fijian archipelago. Dr. Greens theory is that these were the first settlers, not only because at that time they would have had the necessary maritime technology, but as well because their pottery is found throughout the whole of Fiji.