Assessment Questions 7.7

The archaeological record challenges the Eurocentric view of the "age of exploration" by highlighting the remarkable exploration and colonization of the Pacific islands by people long before European explorers. Settlers from southeast Asia and New Guinea deliberately and successfully explored and settled numerous Pacific islands, showcasing advanced navigational skills. Unlike the accidental landfall narrative, deliberate colonization is evident as these settlers brought plants, animals, women, and men necessary for viable settlements. The intentional geographic expansion and colonization of the Pacific islands, starting over 3,500 years ago, challenge the notion that exploration was solely a European phenomenon.

Lapita pottery played a significant role in the spread of people across Polynesia, appearing in the archaeological record about 3,500 years ago in the Bismarck Archipelago and Fiji. The Lapita complex, characterized by maritime adaptation, pig farming, and specific pottery, marked the earliest human population on inhabited Polynesian islands. Genetic evidence, specifically DNA analysis of skeletal remains dating to 3,100 to 2,300 years ago, indicates that the first settlers bearing the Lapita culture likely originated from East Asia. Modern populations in the southwestern Pacific show an admixture of East Asian and Papuan DNA, suggesting that Papuans expanded into the western Pacific more recently and intermingled with the original East Asian settlers.