Nanumanga underwater caves

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The underwater caves of Nanumanga (English: Caves of Nanumanga or Fire Caves of Nanumanga ) are underwater caves off the north coast of Nanumanga in Tuvalu in western Polynesia . They were discovered by two divers in 1986 . The caves are between 37 and 46 m (121-151 ft) below sea level. They lie at the foot of a coral cliff. Dark spots on the roof of the cave and blackened coral fragments on the bottom suggest that people lived there in prehistoric times.

Legends

A local legend, according to which there is a "large house under the sea", had piqued the curiosity of divers.

Historical classification

It is believed that the cave was above the waterline around 8,000 years ago, contrary to what was previously believed that the Pacific was settled around 6,000 years ago.

Archaeological findings were questioned after the discovery due to the lack of climatic evidence. However, a gigantic and sustained rise in sea level began around 18,000 years ago and ended around 4,000 years ago. During this period, most of the evidence of previous human habitation in the Pacific was lost in the floods.

John Gibbons and others believe that the Pacific region, including the Tuvalu Islands , was colonized by boat people who were driven from their home areas near Indonesia and Southeast Asia by the rise in the ocean . The known world of Pacific archeology ends abruptly on a temporal horizon about 6,000 years ago, the earliest detectable date of certain pieces of Lapita pottery . The pottery is found in coastal regions throughout the Southwest Pacific from the Marquesas in the east to New Caledonia in the south and the Carolines in the north.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nanumanga Fire Caves . Wondermondo.
  2. ↑ a b The Age. Melbourne , Australia, Monday April 13, 1987.
  3. ↑ a b In the Journal of Pacific History , John Gibbons from the University of the South Pacific in Fiji writes : “… trying to make sense of Pacific prehistory may have been somewhat akin to the efforts of someone who arrives in time for the second act of a play, and then attempts to work out the plot without even realizing that the first act has already taken place. " John RH Gibbons, GAU Clunie Fergus: Sea Level Changes and Pacific Prehistory: New Insight Into Early Human Settlement of Oceania . Journal of Pacific History 21 (1-2), 1968, pp. 58-82.

Web links

Coordinates: 6 ° 16 ′ 7.3 ″  S , 176 ° 19 ′ 15 ″  E