In a groundbreaking underwater survey, marine archaeologists have located a submerged 3,500-year-old settlement belonging to the Lapita culture in a remote lagoon off the coast of Fiji. Using high-resolution sonar and ROVs, the team identified a series of stone-walled platforms and a massive cache of dentate-stamped pottery and polished basalt adzes, which were used for constructing the iconic voyaging canoes of the Pacific.
The site, now preserved under five meters of water due to tectonic shifts, served as a critical hub for early Austronesian expansion. The discovery of intact basalt tools sourced from over 1,000 kilometers away provides the most direct evidence to date of the vast, highly organized maritime trade networks that facilitated the initial settlement of Remote Oceania.