Evidence of first chief indicates Pacific islanders invented a new society on city they built of cor

Evidence of first chief indicates Pacific islanders invented a new society on city they built of coral and basalt

October 18, 2016 by Margaret Allen


New dating on the stone buildings of Nan Madol suggests the ancient coral reef capital in the Pacific Ocean was the earliest among the islands to be ruled by a single chief.

The discovery makes Nan Madol a key locale for studying how ancient human societies evolved from simple societies to more complex societies, said archaeologist Mark D. McCoy, Southern Methodist University, Dallas. McCoy led the discovery team.

The finding was uncovered as part of a National Geographic expedition to study the monumental tomb said to belong to the first chief of the island of Pohnpei.

McCoy deployed uranium series dating to determine that when the tomb was built it was one-of-a-kind, making it the first monumental scaled burial site on the remote islands of the Pacific.


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-10-evidence-chief-pacific-islanders-society.html#jCp


[center]





More images:
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1574&bih=759&q=Nan+Madol&oq=Nan+Madol&gs_l=img.12..0l10.472.2123.0.3559.2.2.0.0.0.0.159.302.0j2.2.0....0...1.1.64.img..0.2.298.hhnvIV-KcTI#imgrc=_