Posted on 10/30/2007 8:14:22 PM PDT by blam
Ancient Headless Skeletons Found in Island Grave
By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 29 October 2007 11:36 am ET
More than fifty headless skeletons have been unearthed in one of the oldest Pacific Islander cemeteries in the world.
The individuals were members of a socially complex society, traveling between islands hundreds of miles away, a new study suggests.
The finding could solve a long-held debate over whether the Lapita people, thought to be ancestors of the Polynesians, were isolated on individual islands or interacted with other distant Lapita tribes to find marriage partners, exchange information and maintain social ties. Results, detailed in the October issue of the journal American Antiquity, paint a picture of the ancient people as expert seafarers.
"The real question is did they live in isolation or did they keep in communication with the islands that might have been further back in their ancestry, because they generally spread from west to east across the Pacific," said lead author Alex Bentley, an anthropologist at Durham University in the UK.
The 3,000-year-old skeletons were uncovered in 2003 at an archaeological site on Efate Island, part of Vanuatu in the South Pacific. None of the buried individuals had a skull attached to the skeleton, though one male was adorned with three skulls lying on his chest.
Though archaeologists over the past 50 years or so have discovered more than 200 Lapita sites, until now these had yielded just 15 to 20 individuals. Finding a graveyard of tens of skeletons could yield a trove of insights into how these people lived.
“This site is that much more extraordinary due to the fact that it is the earliest and by far the largest cemetery ever
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
“The 3,000-year-old skeletons were uncovered in 2003 at an archaeological site on Efate Island”
3000 years? I guess that eliminates the possibility that the heads are being kept alive somewhere.
Evidence that the evil white man had progressed that far from Europe and the devastation that followed in his wake. Since they’re all dead (the white men and the headless people), to whom will we pay reparations?
“...I used to date a girl with no neck....”
Bigfoot?
Ping
Conclusive proof that Muslims explored the South Pacific.
no its proof there were paleo-liberals...if they check the pelvic region they would’ve found the heads.
Graves Of The Pacific’s First Seafarers Revealed
Science Magazine | 3-26-2006 | Richard Stone
Posted on 04/21/2006 2:26:39 PM EDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1619025/posts
I once dated a girl whose nose was so big that she had to have a clutch implated into her neck.
Headless bodies in topless graves?
When she walked into the room, all heads would turn. Except for hers. Because she had no neck.
Funniest line on a funny thread!
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