| Abstract: |
Despite the central position within the Island Melanesian chain, the islands of the Western Solomons have long remained an archaeological backwater. The majority of work undertaken within this region has been limited to surface surveys of existing structural remains. While these studies have revealed much about the most recent period of Western Solomon prehistory, they have failed to provide the islands with any real time depth. Within the past two years, investigations conducted by archaeologists working for the Solomon Islands Western Province Government have led to the discovery of a number of sites which appear to be much earlier than anything reported from that area. While no excavations have yet been undertaken, the sites have yielded an abundance of surface remains which promise to shed new light on the early prehistory of the region. This paper documents some of these more recent findings and combines the data with the work of previous researchers to produce a tentative outline of Western Solomons prehistory. It is hoped that this review may help to generate new questions concerning the past of these islands, and the role played in the prehistory of the Southwest Pacific.
|
