* Astronomy

Fragment of ancient Australia found under Vanuatu

A fragment of ancient Australia has been found under Vanuatu in the South Pacific, raising questions about how continents are formed, researchers say.
Experts had believed that the volcanic islands, east of Australia, were isolated from continental influence.
But a team from James Cook University says it has found tiny zircon crystals of the same age in rocks on Vanuatu and in northern Australia.
Read more

A real life journey to the centre of the Earth saw a group of adventurers abseiling into the lava-spewing crater of a huge volcano - and tourists could soon have the chance to do the same. Just metres away from a fiery death, Geoff Mackley and his team are believed have ventured further into Marum Volcano - in Vanuatu in the South Pacific - than anyone ever before
Read more

Vanuatu volcano alert
Communities on the Vanuatu island of Gaua are worried about the volcano in its centre. For the past fortnight Gaua volcano has shown signs of increased seismic activity, generating sulphurous gas and ash into the atmosphere and affecting water supplies.

Read more

Archaeologists digging in Vanuatu (Melanesia) have unearthed an ancient cemetery containing the curiously headless skeletons of what are believed to be the earliest known ancestors of Pacific Islanders. The 3,000 year-old remains are those of the Lapita people, who colonised Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa around the time the Pharaohs reigned in Egypt, says Professor Matthew Spriggs of the Australian National University, who led the dig.
Prof Spriggs said tests are expected to confirm that the skeletons belong to the ancestors of Polynesian groups like Maori, Tongans and Samoans.

"It's the earliest cemetery ever found in the Pacific Islands. Up until now people have speculated about the origins of the Polynesians, the origins of the Lapita people, and who were the Lapita people? We've actually got the Lapita people" - Professor Matthew Spriggs

He said the Vanuatu National Museum asked the ANU to investigate the site after it was disturbed by bulldozers clearing the way for a prawn farm. The site was excavated in three stages over 2004, 2005 and 2006 by a team co-directed by his ANU colleague Dr Stuart Bedford and Ralph Regenvanu from the Vanuatu National Cultural Council.
Prof Spriggs says the remains, as well as other archaeological evidence, suggest the Lapita dug up dead people and removed their heads after burial, held the number three as magical and may have believed that children "weren't real people". This is because not one child was found among the 70 skeletons at the cemetery at Teouma, on the southern coast of the island of Efate.

"The only group that's missing are young kids. We've got (young) babies, we've got adult males and females of all ages, but we've got no kids between one and 16. Did they feel that kids weren't real people yet, so they were treated differently or weren't buried in the same place?" - Professor Matthew Spriggs.

Another mystery is the location of the heads. Of 70 individuals, only seven skulls have been located, including three on one man's chest, three between the legs of another man and one in a pot. Spriggs says it's likely that the heads were removed after burial. Up till about 100 years ago when European missionaries arrived in the Pacific, it was common practice for islanders to let the flesh rot away from the head of a dead person and then place the skull in a shrine or a house, he says.

"The head was seen as the seat of the soul, so it's the most important part. It was also a common ritual to remove other bones. Quite often the shoulder blades have been removed and often the forearm bones" - Professor Matthew Spriggs.

The fact that skulls were found in groups of three suggests that the number may have held some magical significance for the Lapita.
Prof Spriggs says scientists in New Zealand and US laboratories will test the bones for traces of ancient DNA which, together with skull measurements, will hopefully solve the riddle of the origins of the Polynesian people. It's most likely to confirm theories that the Polynesians originally came from South-East Asia via Eastern Indonesia, the Philippines and ultimately Taiwan, he says. The team also unearthed six elaborately decorated pots - the largest number of completely reconstructed pots of any site of its age in the Pacific. Five of the pots are on display at Vanuatu and the sixth is being restored at the Australian Museum.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald