Is there any archaeological evidence of aboriginal people who were displaced by the Lapita people or the Austronesians?
MATTHEW SPRIGGS: There are Lapita sites in the Solomons. Not a lot of archaeology has actually been done on the main chain. There’s a bit of an argument among archaeologists as to whether the Lapita people bypassed most of the Solomons or whether we just haven’t found the sites. I’m firmly of the idea that we just haven’t found the sites in many places. There were certainly people on the Solomons for close to 40,000 years. In most of the Solomons people today speak Austronesian languages. There are a few Papuan languages, which are probably remnants of the languages that would have been spoken before 3000 years ago. So there’s clearly been a mixture of people there. If the people say of Makira – or some of them at least – represent these people who were there before 3000 years, the one thing that has happened is that they’ve changed their language. They all speak Austronesian languages today. But some people must have switched from Papuan languages or languages related to the Papuan la
