Lapita diet and health in Vanuatu

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Dr Hallie Buckley, from the Department of Anatomy & Structural Biology, has been successful in gaining funding ($604,000 over 3 years) from the Marsden Fund to carry out research on a project on "Lapita diet and health in Vanuatu: Human adaptation to a virgin islandenvironment".

The Lapita period of Pacific colonisation represents one of the most significant feats of human expansion into virgin environments in world prehistory.

These oceanic explorers, the ancestors of modern Polynesians, colonised new island environments rapidly and left in their wake exquisitely decorated pottery as evidence of their settlement.

Yet, after 50 years of archaeological research, little is known about the people themselves and how they adapted to their new homes.

Bioarchaeology, the study of archaeological human skeletal remains, is the only direct means of investigating the lives in past peoples, such as their daily activities, diseases suffered, and types of foods eaten.

With the recent discovery of two Lapita-associated cemetery sites in Vanuatu we now have the opportunity to address these questions.

Using these Lapita skeletal remains from Vanuatu, this project aims to characterise human adaptation to virgin environments during initial colonisation of the Pacific.

Analysis of the health of these people will be conducted by osteological examination of bones and teeth and their diet will be investigated using chemical analyses of the dietary signatures in bones and teeth.

This project will help us to assess the success of population adaptation to the environment during this crucial period of colonisation.