Lapita archaeologists meet in Vanuatu

Transcript

Organisers hope a conference on the Pacific's ancient Lapita people will help experts get up to date and fuel further research.

One hundred and twelve archaeologists and researchers from around the world are meeting in Vanuatu to discuss the latest discoveries about the Lapita people - the first to colonise parts of Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa.

The conference takes place near the largest Lapita community discovered to date - the Teouma Lapita Cemetery site on Efate.

The Australian National University's Stuart Bedford told Tom Furley the conference is a chance for researchers to share discoveries.

STUART BEDFORD: It's really catching up with the latest. I mean often you complete your research and it takes some time to get around to publishing it. So, conferences give people time to catch up with the very latest and also, you know, get opinions on your research and sometimes you obviously change your final argument.

TOM FURLEY: So this is the second time it is being held in Vanuatu. What's the significance of having it there?

SB: In '96 it was last in Vila primarily because Vanuatu is accessible and easy and so there wasn't a lot to talk about in terms of Vanuatu Lapita in 1996. But we've found a fabulous site not far from Port Vila named Teouma which was a Lapita cemetery. It is the only Lapita cemetery thus far found and with a whole series of burial pots and associated midden remains, you know, rubbish remains next door. Also, we've now found over the last ten years sites right from the Banks Islands down to Aneityum. It's really, coming back to Vanuatu, is seeing how Vanuatu has come ahead in many respects, and given the research of these other places because of the wonderful preservation of material that has been found.

TF: It seems like there are new discoveries, new sites found fairly reguarly. I mean how much soil is there still left unturned?

SB: There's no question that there's got to be some other fabulous sites here. I mean, the Teouma site was found in many respects by chance. It's hard to argue that on an island that is 1000kms square that that's the only site of it's kind to be found so there's lots and lots, you know, generations of work to be done, here, and in all the other islands.

TF: It's an area which seems to take people's imaginations. Why is Lapita so widely followed?

SB: It's being taught much more in schools throughout the Pacific, New Zealand and Australia now because it is one of the big chapters of human exploration and colonisation. It's obviously directly related to Pacific Islanders but you know, on a sort of global scale just the human history of the human scale, it's a fascinating period for everybody.