Photo shows carved figure on one of the Tonga petroglyphs.Beach erosion on a remote island in Tonga have revealed petroglyphs archaeologists say are similar to those found in Hawaii ~ 3,000 treacherous ocean miles away.
More than 50 petroglyphs were buried for centuries under several feet of sand until heavy seas exposed them late last year. The carvings were spotted by two Australian visitors who notified Tonga artist and amateur archaeologist Shane Egan, who in turn contacted archaeologist and ethnohistorian David Burley, a professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada. Burley has conducted a number of field surveys and excavations in Tonga, which is about 3,000 miles southwest of Hawaii.
"Initially I was a bit stunned, knowing the distance and difficulty of travel between the two groups of islands," Burley says. "The evidence, however, is visual and difficult to ignore or explain in ways other than direct contact."
The stick figures have open body forms, but one has a closed triangular body not identified anywhere outside of Hawaii, according to Burley. One human form appears with a headdress that is also similar to a Hawaiian form. Another image resembles a kapu stick, a tapa-covered ball on a stick carried as a sign of approaching royalty, indicating it was created by someone knowledgeable in Hawaiian cultural protocols, he said.
Because the Tonga images are carved in beach rock within a tidal zone, any sheen typical of rock art is gone, making it impossible to radiocarbon-date the petroglyphs. However, the style corresponds to Hawaiian petroglyphs dating from A.D. 1200 to A.D. 1500.
Finally! There is some proof the Hawaiians "could have been" the great sea voyagers our ancient stories tell us!! We all new our ancient stories told us this is true, and now finally there is some physical proof
ReplyDeletenow i know my tongan people do not come from asia
ReplyDeleteAloha ~ I am a student on Kaua`i the Kingdom of Atooi, at Kaua`i Community College. I am in a Hawaiian Histories class and am working on a presentation of Tonga and Samoa. Howewver, prior to school starting I was visiting my youth in Albquerque, NM. The Petroglyphs National Monument also has this arching triangle?! Rainbow Blessings ~ Katrina Martinez
ReplyDeleteThank you, Katrina, for your comment and for visiting. Interesting connection with the petroglyphs in our American Southwest.
ReplyDeleteThis only means that Hawaiians are originally from Tonga..they didn't travel backwards they only moved towards the west of the map
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ReplyDeleteHere you go...
ReplyDeleteDNA reveals Lapita ancestors of Pacific Islanders came from Asia
http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2016-10-04/dna-reveals-lapita-ancestors-of-pacific-islanders-came-from-asia/7893100
The earliest seafaring ancestors of people living in South Pacific islands such as Vanuatu and Tonga arrived from Asia, an analysis of ancient DNA from four skeletons reveals.
A wealth of archaeological evidence, including intricate pottery, indicates people associated with the Lapita culture were the first to colonise the remote islands in the Pacific in the last major dispersal of people to unpopulated lands 3,000 years ago.
But until this analysis we did not know who these people were, the study's co-author Professor Matthew Spriggs of the Australian National University said.
"Now that we've got the DNA of the ancient Lapita people, the big shock is that they are really like [Aboriginal] people from Taiwan," Professor Spriggs said.
Today, all south Pacific Islanders have a heritage that includes DNA from both a Papuan and an East Asian population to varying degrees.