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While most authors included Papuans, Aboriginal Australians and Melanesians (mainly from Fiji, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu), there was controversy about the inclusion of the various Southeast Asian populations grouped as "Negrito", or a number of dark-skinned tribal populations of the Indian subcontinent.
The predominantly Melanesian areas of Oceania include New Guinea and surrounding islands, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji [citation needed]. New Caledonia and nearby Loyalty Islands for most of their history have had a majority Melanesian population, but the proportion has dropped to 43% in the face of modern immigration. [29]
Sinodonty is a particular pattern of teeth characterized by the following features: The upper first incisors and upper second incisors are shovel-shaped, and they are "not aligned with the other teeth". [11] The upper first premolar has one root, and the lower first molar in Sinodonts has three roots (3RM1). [11] [5]
The indigenous peoples of Western New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, commonly called Papuans, [2] are Melanesians.There is genetic evidence for two major historical lineages in New Guinea and neighboring islands: a first wave from the Malay Archipelago perhaps 50,000 years ago when New Guinea and Australia were a single landmass called Sahul and, much later, a wave of Austronesian ...
Oceania is generally considered the least decolonized region in the world. In his 1993 book France and the South Pacific since 1940, Robert Aldrich commented: . With the ending of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands became a 'commonwealth' of the United States, and the new republics of the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia signed ...
Aboriginal Australians along the coast and rivers were also expert fishermen. Some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people relied on the dingo as a companion animal, using it to assist with hunting and for warmth on cold nights. Aboriginal women's implements, including a coolamon lined with paperbark and a digging stick. This woven basket ...
Wombats use their rodent-like front teeth and powerful claws to dig extensive burrow systems; they are mainly crepuscular and nocturnal. Wombats are also well known for their backwards facing pouches. Also among this group is the marsupial lion, which went extinct after the arrival of aboriginals, and was one of the few carnivorous vombatiforms.
Human cannibalism in Melanesia and Polynesia was primarily associated with war, with victors eating the vanquished, while in Australia it was often a contingency for hardship to avoid starvation. Cannibalism used to be widespread in parts of Fiji (once nicknamed the "Cannibal Isles"), [ 1 ] among the Māori people of New Zealand, and in the ...