Original Natives
The human history of the Solomon Islands begins with the first Papuans settlement at least 30,000 years ago from New Guinea. They represented the furthest expansion of humans into the Pacific until the expansion of Austronesian-language speakers through the area around 4000 BC, bringing new agricultural and maritime technology. Most of the languages spoken today in the Solomon Islands derive from this era, but some thirty languages of the pre-Austronesian settlers survive (see East Papuan languages).
There are preserved numerous pre-European cultural monuments in Solomon Islands, notably Bao megalithic shrine complex (13th century AD), Nusa Roviana fortress and shrines (14th - 19th century), Vonavona Skull island - all in Western province. Nusa Roviana fortress, shrines and surrounding villages served as a hub of regional trade networks in 17th - 19th centuries. Skull shrines of Nusa Roviana are sites of legends. Better known is Tiola shrine - site of legendary stone dog which turned towards the direction where enemy of Roviana was coming from. This complex of archaeological monuments characterises fast development of local Roviana culture, through trade and head hunting expeditions turning into regional power in 17th - 18th centuries.
Read more about this topic: History Of The Solomon Islands
Famous quotes containing the words original and/or natives:
“That Calvinistic sense of Innate Depravity and Original Sin, from whose visitations, in some shape or another, no deeply thinking mind is always and wholly free. For, in certain moods, no man can weigh this world, without throwing in something, somehow like Original Sin, to strike the uneven balance.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“The partridge and the rabbit are still sure to thrive, like true natives of the soil, whatever revolutions occur. If the forest is cut off, the sprouts and bushes which spring up afford them concealment, and they become more numerous than ever. That must be a poor country indeed that does not support a hare. Our woods teem with them both.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)