Posted on 02/04/2009 4:57:12 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The discovery of more than 50 ancient rock engravings in Tonga has excited archaeologists, who say they demonstrate the links between the Pacific island and Hawaii before Europeans arrived... Tonga, where Burley has previously documented a fishing village established 2,900 years ago as the first settlement in Polynesia, is 5,060 kilometres (3,144 miles) from Hawaii. The rock drawings, or petroglyphs, include images of humans and animals and are on two slabs of beach-rock that were exposed by erosion on Tonga's Foa island. They are in the style of the earliest stick figure forms in Hawaii, which would place them between the years 1250 and 1550. Burley said the dates correlated closely with two adjacent archaeological sites on Foa, a village and a pigeon-snaring mound, that had been placed in the period 1450 to 1650... Burley, in an email interview with AFP, said that, stylistically, the images were clearly Hawaiian and nothing remotely close had been documented elsewhere in west Polynesia... Tonga's previously reported rock art has been limited to simple geometric engravings, though there is also a single engraved outline of a foot on a stone at a royal tomb. Burley said the petroglyphic foot was so rare he had assumed it was intentionally carved in a symbolic fashion, but the latest find meant he was not so sure. He said it may have been on a stone that was quarried for the tomb. The Foa site was recently found to have been a quarry for blocks used in tomb construction.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
Tonga archaeology discovery blow to Samoa’s ‘cradle’ claim
Radio Australia | January 10, 2008 | unattributed
Posted on 02/06/2008 6:32:05 AM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1965811/posts
FMCDH(BITS)
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To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. |
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Bailout includes funding for graffiti removal. O will get this cleaned up soon.
Update.
additional from the Tonga keyword:
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