A joint team of marine archaeologists and geochemists has identified a 6,000-year-old maritime trade route dubbed the 'Obsidian and Coral' Seaway. By analyzing the chemical signatures of obsidian tools found in the Solomon Islands, researchers traced their origin to volcanic quarries in the Bismarck Archipelago, over 1,000 kilometers away across open ocean.
This discovery pushes back the timeline for sophisticated long-distance navigation in the Pacific by nearly a millennium. The study suggests that prehistoric seafaring communities possessed advanced knowledge of seasonal currents and star-based navigation far earlier than previously thought. The exchange of high-quality volcanic glass for coastal resources like coral jewelry appears to have been a cornerstone of early Melanesian social and economic networking.