SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AFP) - New evidence found in the Northern Mariana Islands suggests human settlement in the Pacific islands of Micronesia began at least 5,000 years ago, researchers said.
The earliest documented archaeological sites in the US-administered territory are Saipan's Unai Achugao site from 1800 BC or 3,800 years ago and Tinian's Unai Chulu site dating to 1500 BC. But as a result of the new evidence archaeologists are hoping to locate much earlier sites.
American researchers J. Stephen Athens and Jerome Ward of the International Archaeological Research Institute said Thursday sediment cores taken from Lake Susupe on the Northern Marianas' main island of Saipan provided a continual record of plant pollen, charcoal and other materials for the past 8,000 years.
The two said it appears that the series of abrupt shifts in the island's environment was caused by humans, raising the possibility of inhabitants on the island as far back as 2860 BC.
"This is some of the earliest evidence of human settlement ever found in Micronesia," said Northern Marianas Historic Preservation Office director Epiphanio Cabrera in a statement.
"This discovery predates the earliest archeological sites on Saipan by more than a thousand years.
HPO acting staff archaeologist Richard Knecht said the challenge was to use knowledge about where the shorelines lay in ancient times to find human settlements from 5,000 years ago.
Future research on Saipan's ancient shorelines would likely reveal more early sites, "and possibly the first movement of early humans into the Pacific from Asia," he said.
People in Micronesia have similar characteristics to the inhabitants of Indonesia and the Philippines, which lie about 2,500 km (1,500 miles) away to the southwest.
Knecht said it probably took years for humans to alter the environment to the point where it left a mark in the sediment cores, so the actual dates of initial human settlement could be decades or centuries earlier than indicated by the cores.
