Excavations underway at Port Sandwich in Vanuatu

Transcript

A archeological dig underway in an area of Vanuatu once made famous by Captain Cook has confirmed the dramatic effects of early European contact.

Stuart Bedford, of Australian National University, is studying a small area of Port Sandwich at Lamap in Malakula.

Captain Cook visited the area in 1774 and gave the port its name, describing it as the best port in the archipelago.

Dr Bedford says the excavation of more than 200 sites so far has revealed the area was once densely populated but fell dramatically once Europeans arrived.

He spoke to our correspondent, Hilaire Bule, about the project.

STUART BEDFORD: We've chosen Port Sandwich, Lamap of course because it's where Cook comes first to Northen Vanuatu in 1774. He stays and names Port Sandwich and he and other colleagues describe the area in some detail, they actually draw a map and he describes, which in many respects seals the fate of people in South East Malakula, describes it as the best harbour in the archipelago, so any European coming to the area is aware of that and everyone pulls in there. From the 1870s, there's the labour trafficking so boats are coming in there, they're trading guns, indigenous Ni-Vanuatu are getting guns, there's inter tribal conflict, using guns, which has a major impact on the population, social organisation. A lot of people are fleeing that, they go to Queensland to work there. You get the introduction of a whole range of diseases that local populations do not have any defense against. So you get this massive depopulation and then land sales from the late 1870s, 1880s, essentially a whole area around the harbour, the land is alienated by the 1880s. Then you get also an attempt by the New Caledonian government in fact, they send military troops and establish a military post in Port Sandwich for two years in 1886-1888, in an intial attempt to take over the whole archipelago. So it's an area that has had major impact at the same time it's probably as far as Northern Vanuatu goes, it has the richest archival documents, photographs, written records and also oral traditions. We're looking at recording oral traditions of the region which were left out of written histories. There's the Catholic Church that arrived there also in 1888, so they've got lots of fabulous records, they've got the early land records and also a series of photography, people took photographs through the early 19th century, so it's a fabulously rich arichival record. I think the core of the project really is to demonstrate the impact of European contact through the 19th Century, and I think the most dramatic evidence of that is when Cook, soon after Cook pulls into Port Sandwich, he estimates between five and six hundred fighting men meet him on the beach, no women or children. In 1915 when the first French resident is establish in Lamap, he does a full tour of the region, the peninsular, Lamap, Port Sandwich and beyond, and he does an initial census. He counts, 315 men, women, and children. So there's been this extraordinary drastic decline in population and of course associated affects in terms of land, tenure and social organisation. So we're doing the archival research, we're doing archaeological survey in the bush, we're recording all these sites and old villages. The one fabulous advantage, doing this sort of work in Malakula, is that where ever people have a settlement, there ceremonial structure is associated, they plant stones. They carry stones from the sea or the river, and they stand them up as taboo stones, so despite the fact that you might walk around the bush and there's no sign of anything else, there's a series of standing stones. We've recorded almost two hundred of these in the interior which really further confirms the dramatic impact in population loss in the region. Which, these same impacts of the 19th century, aspects of which the Ni-Vanuatu population of today are very much still having to deal with.

HILAIRE BULE: So during your excavation which started last year in your research, did you find some evidence or proof of what has been said by Captain Cook?

STUART BEDFORD: Yeah, well I think the most dramatic evidence is that, as I say we've recorded now almost some two hundred sites which have standing stones, which indicate a village and ceremonial structure nearby. Currently I think 19th century, early 20th century, people talked about  eleven nasara at Port Sandwich Lamap, and another seven Asuk area, so much reduced population even in the late 19th, early 20th century. Now the record we've now got, from these abandoned areas in the bush, more than two hundred sites, it's difficult to date these sites so they may have been occupied over quite some period but it certainly demonstrates that there isn't any empty space in the vast areas now where people don't live. They've essentially been abandoned or whole villages have disappeared in the 19th century, so it's really demonstrated and confirmed Cook's initial observations that the Islands of this region and particularly Malakula, commented that the whole islands seemed very populated, even in the interior he could see gardens high up in the high hills, fires at all different levels of the typography, indicating that the island was very densely populated.