Ancient site · Tomb
Teouma
Teouma, near Teouma Bay on Éfaté in Vanuatu, holds the oldest known cemetery in the Pacific Islands, found in 2003. It contained burials of dozens of early Lapita people, about 3,000 years old.
Many skulls had been removed after death and some replaced by cone-shell rings, showing elaborate funeral customs. Fragments of red, intricately decorated Lapita pottery were placed with the dead. Isotope tests on 17 individuals suggest that four of them grew up elsewhere and arrived as migrants, which helps show how people moved between islands.
- Dates
- c. 1100–900 BCE (about 3,000 years old)
- Still standing
- No, or only traces
- Location
- 17.79° S, 168.39° E
How we know
No writing existed; the burials are dated by radiocarbon and by the Lapita pottery buried with them.
Nearby sites
- Lapita type site (Site 13, Foué) dated to c. 800 BCE
- Nukuleka founded c. 888 BCE; occupied for about 250 years
- Wairau Bar settled c. 1288–1300 CE (later than this atlas's ancient period)
- Kuk Swamp drainage from c. 7000 BCE (about 9,000 years ago)
- Nan Madol megalithic building from c. 1180–1200 CE; capital until c. 1628 (later than this atlas's ancient period)
- Budj Bim eel traps from at least c. 4600 BCE (6,600 years ago)
Related
- Lapita culture archaeological culture
- The world in 1500 BCE: Chariots and Empires chapter