3,000-yr-old bodies found in Pacific

A skeleton with three skulls sitting on its chest is uncovered after archeologists discovered a 3,000 year-old cemetery in Vanuatu, holding secrets about the first humans to colonise the South Pacific. PHOTO: AFP

A team from the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra said 13 headless skeletons of the Lapita people had been unearthed in what was described as the oldest cemetery ever found in the region.

Traces of the Lapita, considered the ancestors of all Pacific Islanders beyond the Solomons, have been found in more than 100 other archeological digs across the region.

But finding remains of Lapita people is so rare that until the Vanuatu discovery, many arche-ologists believed they must have buried their dead at sea, said ANU archeologist Matthew Spriggs.