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When Fiji’s first settlers arrived from the islands of Melanesia at least 3,500 years ago, they carried with them a wide range of food plants, the pig, and a style of pottery known as Lapita ware. That pottery is generally associated with peoples who had well-developed skills in navigation and canoe building and were horticulturists.
Fiji was settled first by the Lapita culture, around 1,500–1,000 years BC, followed by a large influx of people with predominantly Melanesian genetics about the time of the beginning of the Common Era.
- Early Fijian History. Fiji’s early history has been interpreted through archaeological findings and oral history. We know that the Lapita people resided in Fiji through Lapita pottery findings, while many Fijians know the legend of the first settler who arrived in Fiji, Lutunasobasoba.
- The Arrival of the Europeans. Avoided for its treacherous reefs, Fiji didn’t really connect with the Western world until around the 1800s. A few brief encounters were made in the early European exploration days, such as Dutch navigator Abel Tasman sailing past the island of Taveuni in 1643 and British navigator James Cook making note of Vatua Island in the Lau Islands of Fiji in 1774.
- Indenture of Indian Labourers. During the early days of British colonisation in Fiji, an outbreak of measles wiped out about a third of the Fijian population.
- Independence and the Four Coups. After World War 2, the focus in Fiji was on politics and separation in the political system between the Fijians and the Indian labourer descendants, now commonly known as “Indo-Fijians”.
1500 BC – 1400 BC. Fiji was suggested to have been settled by Micronesian, before Melanesians, but evidence is lacking that this happened – either in oral accounts or geological data, except that of Ma'afu. Archaeological finding suggest long standing occupation of the islands.
Sep 17, 2023 · The place rose to prominence in 2003 when local archaeologists led by University of the South Pacific professor, Patrick D. Nunn, discovered at Bourewa the oldest human settlement in Fiji. Then, it was part of a sugarcane field.
The first permanent settlers, mostly French Canadians, some Anglo-New Englanders and a few African American freedmen, arrived in Wisconsin while it was under British control. Charles Michel de Langlade is generally recognized as the first settler, establishing a trading post at Green Bay in 1745, and moving there permanently in 1764. [27]
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Jan 4, 2018 · A chronology of key events in the history of Fiji from the 17th century to the present day.
