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A Canadian archaeologist has identified a small fishing village in Tonga, established nearly 3,000 years ago, as the birthplace of Polynesia. Matangi Tonga online reports that Professor David Burley drew his conclusion from his final excavation at Nukuleka, east of the capital Nuku'alofa, six months ago when they found pieces of Lapita pottery. "The big pieces of pottery are about 2,900 years old," he said... Professor Burley and his team say they have made their conclusions based on the designs of the pottery and carbon dating of samples... Stuff NZ reports that the discovery is a blow to surrounding Pacific...

Polynesians beat Columbus to the Americas 22:00 04 June 2007 NewScientist.com news service Emma Young Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Prehistoric Polynesians beat Europeans to the Americas, according to a new analysis of chicken bones. The work provides the first firm evidence that ancient Polynesians voyaged as far as South America, and also strongly suggests that they were responsible for the introduction of chickens to the continent - a question that has been hotly debated for more than 30 years. Chilean archaeologists working at the site of El Arenal-1, on the Arauco Peninsula in south-central Chile, discovered what...

First Chickens in Americas Were Brought From Polynesia By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD Why did the chicken cross the Pacific Ocean? To get to the other side, in South America. How? By Polynesian canoes, which apparently arrived at least 100 years before Europeans settled the continent. That is the conclusion of an international research team, which reported yesterday that it had found “the first unequivocal evidence for a pre-European introduction of chickens to South America,” or presumably anywhere in the New World. The researchers said that bones buried on the South American coast were from chickens that lived between 1304 and...

Drifters could explain sweet-potato travel An unsteered ship may have delivered crop to Polynesia.Brendan Borrell Where did these come from? How did the South American sweet potato wind up in Polynesia? New research suggests that the crop could have simply floated there on a ship. The origin of the sweet potato in the South Pacific has long been a mystery. The food crop undisputedly has its roots in the Andes. It was once thought to have been spread by Spanish and Portuguese sailors in the sixteenth century, but archaeological evidence indicates that Polynesians were cultivating the orange-fleshed tuber much earlier...

Tongan protesters have scuffled with New Zealand police outside a residence of the king of Tonga in the northern city of Auckland. Civil servants on the impoverished South Pacific archipelago have been on strike for several weeks. A blaze engulfed one of the king's houses on Tonga on Monday, although it was not clear if this was related. New Zealand has said it will send a negotiator to Tonga to mediate between the government and civil servants. Some 3,000 government employees have been on strike since July, demanding pay increases. The unrest is now spreading to Auckland's large Tongan community....

A genetic study helps confirm the theory that Polynesians, who settled islands across a vast swathe of ocean, started out in Taiwan, researchers reported on Monday. Mitochondrial DNA, which is passed along virtually unchanged from mothers to their children, provides a kind of genetic clock linking present-day Polynesians to the descendants of aboriginal residents of Taiwan. Samples taken from nine indigenous Taiwanese tribes -- who are different ethnically and genetically from the now-dominant Han Chinese -- show clear similarities between the Taiwan groups and ethnic Polynesians, Jean Trejaut and Marie Lin of Mackay Memorial Hospital in Taipei and colleagues reported....

Scientists are taking a new look at an old and controversial idea: that ancient Polynesians sailed to Southern California a millennium before Christopher Columbus landed on the East Coast. Key new evidence comes from two directions. The first involves revised carbon-dating of an ancient ceremonial headdress used by Southern California's Chumash Indians. The second involves research by two California scientists who suggest that a Chumash word for "sewn-plank canoe" is derived from a Polynesian word for the wood used to construct the same boat. The scientists, linguist Kathryn A. Klar of UC Berkeley and archaeologist Terry L. Jones of Cal...

The 6.7-magnitude quake occurred at 1:48 a.m. about 250 miles northwest of the Vanuatu capital of Port Vila, according to the Web site of the U.S. Geological Survey... There have been no reports of damage from the quake, which was centered approximately 125 miles below the seabed, the seismologist said.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Descendants of English mutineers living on remote Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific have been ordered to surrender their guns amid fears that a trial for alleged child sex offences could lead to violence. Tiny Pitcairn has a population of 45 people, who have about 20 guns between them. The deadline for them to surrender their weapons is Sept. 7. The island's governor, the British high commissioner in New Zealand, has ordered that the weapons be handed in to the British colony's two policemen, a commission spokesman said on Wednesday. "We thought it prudent to take the...

Hi all I am moving to American Samoa next week and was wondering whether any of you friendly freepers have lived there and know what its like. I have read up on the net as well as various books but would like to hear from anyone who can supply me with the view of life in Am.Sam. as an ex-pat.

The following is a release by the United States Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center: A major earthquake occurred about 60 miles (95 km) west-northwest of Wewak, New Guinea, Papua New Guinea or about 520 miles (840 km) northwest of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea at 12:44 PM MDT today, Sep 8, 2002 (Sep 09 at 4:44 AM local time in Papua New Guinea). A PRELIMINARY MAGNITUDE OF 7.5 WAS COMPUTED FOR THIS EARTHQUAKE. The magnitude and location may be revised when additional  data and further analysis results are available. No reports of damage or casualties have been received at...