Archaeologist explores a hidden homeland

Easter Island — or Rapa Nui in the native language — is known around the world for its massive moai statues. While the physical origins of the statues can be traced to a quarry on the remote island, where did the idea behind them come from?

To find out, �������� Anthropology Professor Carl Lipo, University of Arizona archaeologist Terry Hunt, and Christopher Filimoehala and Timothy Rieth from the International Archeological Research Institute traveled in late July to Ontong Java, the largest atoll in the world. Their findings could upend a 100-year-old story about the Pacific islands and how they were settled.

“Perhaps the craziest thing about this is that no archaeology has ever been done on these islands,” Lipo explains. “For the most part, they haven’t been studied since German researchers were poking around in 1899 and later in the 1920s. That work is the extent of our knowledge about these people’s material culture and history. But the hints we have suggest that these places may be the root of all of eastern Polynesia: the great-grandparents of Rapa Nui.”

Ancestor worship is found throughout the Polynesian islands, which means that the practice must have originated in a homeland from which they dispersed. Something happened in the 13th century of the common era that led the Polynesian people to sail for distant shores, landing on places as diverse as Hawaii, New Zealand, Rapa Nui and Tahiti around the same time, bringing their language, traditions, cultural artifacts and technologies.

“The question is: Where does all that come from? The traditional answer has been Samoa,” Lipo says.

A large island in the central Pacific, Samoa has been occupied for nearly 4,000 years. But there’s a problem with that theory: many of the cultural features and artifacts of eastern Polynesia, including carved, upright stones and specific forms of ancestor-worship, aren’t found in Samoa.

University of Hawaii linguist William “Pila” Wilson has a theory: The homeland of the eastern Polynesian peoples lay in the “northern outlier” islands far west of Samoa, located between Micronesia and the Solomon Islands. There are linguistic links between the languages spoken there and those of eastern Polynesia. Tiny and remote, these islands have been largely inaccessible to any except the most determined researchers.

“This could be the homeland for all of eastern Polynesia, but the only way to know is to go there,” Lipo recounts.

And the time for that journey must be now: Rising sea levels threaten the future of islands such as Ontong Java. Climate change raises sea levels and worsens storms, potentially sweeping parts of the island into the sea. There are other factors, too; saltwater intrusion into the groundwater makes it increasingly difficult for islanders to grow food crops.

“The island isn’t that wide; a typhoon could easily blow across and a storm surge could wipe it out,” Lipo explains. “Will it be in 20 years, 30 years? They’re at the front lines of climate change. There’s a definite urgency.”

The journey

Stretching 150 miles, Ontong Java consists of a thin strip of land bending around a central lagoon. Reaching it is no easy task; there are no airports or ferries, and freighters make only irregular stops.

Lipo has connections with the National Museum of the Solomon Islands, thanks to research he is conducting at the World War II battle site of Guadalcanal. That led to contact with Ontong Java residents, including the island’s chiefs, which paved the way for the expedition.

The researchers chartered a 1960s tugboat, which sailed from the capital of the Solomon Islands, Honiara, 200 miles into the vast ocean — a journey that took two days. Team members brought their own food and supplies and lived on the tugboat for three weeks during the summer 2025 expedition.

Most of the local economy consists of subsistence agriculture and fishing; the villagers also harvest sea cucumbers, which are sold to China for medicinal purposes. For all its remoteness, the island has cell towers, which have created an odd juxtaposition of the ancient and modern: villagers living in thatched huts, watching YouTube on their smartphones, Lipo recounts.

“It was the wildest place I’ve ever been to, at the ends of the Earth,” Lipo says. “It’s hard to explain, being on this low island with ocean as far as you can see.”

The excavation

When you’re an archaeologist conducting the very first excavation on a site — an exceedingly rare opportunity these days — where do you start?

Throughout history, people tend to build their settlements on high ground; on atolls, they will often choose the calmer lagoon side rather than the open ocean. And, in fact, that’s where the main village of Ontong Java is today, Lipo explains. Among the houses, the researchers drilled down to determine the potential location of early cultural deposits before conducting an excavation.

In search of an archaeological needle in the haystack, the researchers hit pay dirt: a site with deposits that went down to the high tide line, indicating that people may have been present on the atoll not long after it emerged from the sea.

“The island is gigantic, and we had the chance to poke just one hole in it, about 2 meters deep — 8 cubic meters of dirt out of 150 potential miles,” Lipo says. “To pick the right location seems almost impossible, but we may have picked a good spot, amazingly.”

Atolls have their start as a volcano fringed by coral reefs; eventually, the volcano collapses inward, creating the lagoon at the atoll’s heart. Sea-levels were higher 5,000 years ago, and the future Ontong Java would have been largely underwater. As sea levels fell, the coral reefs began to emerge and were eventually seeded by vegetation; coconuts float across the Pacific Ocean and largely plant themselves, Lipo explains.

The excavation site, it turns out, was filled with charcoal and discarded shells, although cultural artifacts were few; the researchers only discovered two shell pendants. Indications are that the site was essentially a backyard trash pile; charcoal and food waste would have helped enrich the soil for crops such as taro.

Samples of the charcoal have been sent for radiocarbon dating, to determine when people started living there. Researchers also discovered bones of the Pacific rat, a species of tree-rodent that has accompanied Polynesians wherever they settled. Interesting fact: These very rats may have been responsible for the deforestation of Easter Island by eating the island’s palm nuts, preventing the trees from regenerating.

“The genetics of the rat can tell you where the rats come from. You can trace the movement of people by tracing the genetics of the rat,” Lipo explains. “If it appears in a period that predates East Polynesia and has the East Polynesian haplotype, then it had to have come from here.”

The community

While Lipo was among the first archaeologists to excavate there, Ontong Java has other researchers through the decades — starting with a German team more than a century ago.

Unfortunately, Western researchers have traditionally taken an extractive stance when it comes to knowledge: gathering information but never returning to share their findings — a mistake Lipo is determined not to repeat. As a gift, the research team brought the book authored by the German expedition, filled with findings, photos and drawings that the islanders have never seen.

“They opened the book and saw their grandparents, and traditions they had known about only from stories,” Lipo remembers. “It highlights the importance of communication with the community when you do research.”

The researchers also gave lectures on archaeology at the island’s school and took part in an island-wide meeting that discussed the purpose of their expedition.

While the islanders have oral traditions, they don’t have a written history. Lipo’s research could fill in these gaps, showing that they have lived on these remote islands for many generations — both validating and bittersweet, as the islanders contemplate their climate change future.

In a way, the atoll’s very remoteness may help prove its ancestral status to East Polynesia, and the many cultures and peoples that spread in all directions across the waves.

“On an atoll — you can even see this today — in order to survive, you need to be able to sail,” Lipo explains. “People in these islands were incredibly mobile and adept at moving long distances. In a technological and cultural sense, they’re the perfect group to recognize the potential for long-distance voyaging.”

Lipo and his team plan to return to Ontong Java for future expeditions — in part to explore the island’s ancient monuments. Prior to their conversion to Christianity, the residents of Ontong Java made gigantic headstones that represented their ancestors, which can be seen in old cemeteries even today. They also traditionally made wooden figurines depicting the human form.

“We’ve just scratched the surface,” Lipo says.