The continuation of the archaeological research project on lenger island
◆Invitation to our archaeological research in Pohnpei (Aug 22-31, 2023)◆
To those who are in Pohnpei, we are very happy to invite you to our archaeological excavations on Pohnpei, Micronesia! Are you excited to hear such words as archaeology, excavations, and ancient village site? Are you interested in when your ancestors first settled in Pohnpei, where they came from, and how their life was at that time? If so, this is an excellent opportunity for you!
A team of Japanese archaeologists, which is headed by Dr. Ono Rintaro (National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka), started an archaeological research project in Pohnpei in collaboration with the Pohnpei State Historic Preservation Office in 2019. Our Pasifika Renaissance Executive Director, Takuya Nagaoka, is a member of this group. This research project entitled “Archaeological Study of Human Migrations and Inter-islands Networks in Oceania” is funded by the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Program of the Japan Government (the Promotion of Joint International Research (Fostering Joint International Research B), 18KK0019).
Our focus is to shed light on the early Micronesian culture during the colonization period when the ancestors of the Pohnpeian people first arrived on this island around 2000 years ago. We conducted three field seasons on Lenger Island, a small offshore island in the lagoon of Pohnpei, to excavate a very early village site in 2019 and earlier this year after an interval due to Covid-19. Our excavations revealed a variety of ancient artifacts such as shell tools, shell ornaments, and potsherds, and confirmed that there existed a very old village site there.
We will carry out our fourth field season from next week for two weeks, from August 22 to 31, to expand the excavation areas. If you are interested in learning your island’s history and what archaeologists do, you can join us as a volunteer. We will provide you with transportation between Kolonia and Lenger and lunch. We’ll leave Kolonia (at the Ice Plant near CSP in the old Public Market site) for Lenger at 8:30 in the morning and come back to Kolonia at 5 in the evening. You can join us any day(s) during this period when you have free time. Please pick a day that you can stay on Lenger for the whole day, as we cannot provide transportation to leave there in the middle of the day.
If you cannot join our excavations on Lenger, you can still look at excavated ancient artifacts at an exhibition at the Pohnpei State Historic Preservation Office (opposite the Spanish Wall Baseball Field) from 9AM to 4PM on September 1, as we did for our past two field seasons in 2019. If you are a school teacher, you are very welcome to bring your students to our excavations and exhibition. If you are interested, please send us a message.
Click on the link below for the previous project
http://www.comfsm.fm/dcr/misc/Micronesian-studies-engages-in-Archelogical-Learing-S2019.pdf