Word: melanesia
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...past few decades, argument has focused on whether the Lapita people originated among Neolithic farmers of Taiwan before moving through Melanesia and into Polynesia, or whether the Lapita culture was indigenous to the Bismarck Archipelago. In Auckland, Matisoo-Smith's lab has begun the intricate task of following that trail by trying to extract dna from the bones. Only one other study of ancient dna, collected from a range of younger sites, has ever been done in the region, and it was undertaken, Matisoo-Smith says, when less rigorous protocols produced less reliable results. While her results are still incomplete...
...telltale signs of degenerative bone disease - evidence of hard physical work. Signs of malaria could reveal whether the Lapita people unknowingly brought the illness with them, while details of their diet will help tackle one of the great puzzles of the Lapita story - did some stay long enough in Melanesia to set up gardens, or were they, as proponents of the "Express Train to Polynesia" theory believe, just passing through on their way east, eating whatever they could forage along the way? "The fact that they were burying people in a cemetery suggests they were here for the long haul...
...After a gleeful hymn to "Jeee-susss," the Church of Melanesia's 60 Sunday schoolers bolt like whippets out of the starting box; it's playtime for the children of trainee Anglican priests and their wives. A smiling but intense Father Brown speaks about the scarcity experienced in rural areas during the tensions and the role of the Anglican Melanesian Brothers in making peace. "ramsi has started the process to get to a solution," he says. Across the country, people are amazingly resilient. They may still identify as Malaitans or Guadalcanalese, rather than as Solomon Islanders, but they're united...