Legacy MattersI don't know what to make of the ancient cemetery, three thousand years old, found in Vanuatu, a Melanesian nation of 83 islands in the South Pacific.
Ancient remains unearthed in Vanuatu.
In this earliest cemetery ever found in the Pacific Islands, the skeletons are all headless.
Professor Matthew Spriggs of the Australian National University led the dig. He speculated that the Lapita people followed the common practice, common that it is until about 100 years ago, of letting the flesh rot away from the head of a dead person and then placing the skull in a shrine or a house. He said
The head was seen as the seat of the soul, so it's the most important part.