Prehistoric Study on Evolutionary Processes of the Lapita People to Polynesians in the South Pacific

为了弄清包括波利尼西亚人在内的南太平洋地区土著居民祖先拉皮塔人的人口和生活状况，我们打算从生物人类学、史前史、考古学、生态人类学、人类遗传学、年代学、地球科学等角度推进跨学科研究。我们在汤加王国的Ha’apai岛、萨摩亚的Savai岛和斐济的moturiki岛开展了几种实地工作，收集了每位研究者学科相关的科学数据，并在每个实验室对这些数据进行了大力分析。与此同时，我们中的一些人参观了位于波利尼西亚和南美洲西海岸的几个博物馆和有关机构，并调查了博物馆的资料，以更清楚地了解拉皮塔人和祖先波利尼西亚人的古代长途航行活动。特别要提的是以下几点。首先，我们的prehi…More story和考古小组探索了斐济Moturiki岛上一个非常有希望的考古遗址，并挖掘了许多Lapita人设计的陶器碎片和人类骨骼遗骸。这具骨架（名为“玛娜”）保存得非常完好，尤其是头骨，被发现是迄今为止出土的最完整的拉皮塔人骨架之一。在日本，我们从人类学的角度对这具骨架进行了彻底的调查，并在此基础上，我们在世界上首次成功地重建了它的面部构造。结果，拉皮塔人的人类学特征变得更加详细，人们发现他们在某些方面很像亚洲人，也很像现在的波利尼西亚人。其次，我们的身体测量研究表明，波利尼西亚人的脚非常大，是脚最大的群体，推断这一特征是从祖先拉皮塔人那里遗传下来的。第三，我们在萨摩亚的萨瓦伊岛进行了两次试验挖掘，在汤加的考艾岛收集了非常详细的数据，以重建古代捕鱼活动，并在汤加的汤加塔普对100多人进行了血液采样。在这些研究成果中，拉皮塔人的面部重建应该被评价为最重要的成功。少

Aiming to elucidate the population and life of the Lapita people who were the ancestoral group of native inhabitants in the South Pacific area including Polynesians, we intended to advance interdisciplinary researches from the viewpoints of biological anthropology, prehistory, archaeology, ecological anthropology, human genetics, chronology, earth sciences and so on. We carried out several kinds of field work on the Ha'apai islands in Tonga Kingdom, the Savai'i island in Samoa and theMoturiki island in Fiji, collected scientific data related on each investigator's discipline, and analyzed those data in each laboratory vigorously. At the same time, some of us visited several museums and the institutions concerned which are situated in Polynesia and the western coast of South America, and investigated the museum materials to make clearer ancient long-voyaging activities by the Lapita people and ancestral Polynesians. Special mention should be put on the following points. First, our prehi … More story and archaeology group explored a very promising archaeological site on the Moturiki island in Fiji, and excavated lots of Lapita-designed pottery sherds and a human skeletal remains with the Lapita potteries. The skeleton (named 'Mana') was very well preserved especially with the skull, and found to be one of the most intact Lapita-associated skeletons thus fur unearthed. This skeleton was thoroughly investigated in Japan from an anthropological perspective, and based on the investigations, we were successful in its making-face reconstruction firstly in the world. As a result, the anthropological characters of the Lapita people became more detailed, and it was found that they were quite Asiatic in some aspects as well as quite similar to the present Polynesians. Second, our somatometric research demonstrated that Polynesians were very big in their feet and the biggest-foot group, and it was inferred that the character was inherited from the ancestral Lapita people. Third, we materialized test excavations twice on the Savai'i Island in Samoa, collecting of very detailed data at Kauai Island in Tonga to reconstruct ancient fishing activities, and sampling of blood for more than 100 individuals in Tongatapu, Tonga. Of these research results, the making-face reconstruction of the Lapita people should be evaluated as the most important success. Less