Nukuleka is a small

fishing village A fishing village is a village, usually located near a fishing ground, with an economy based on catching fish and harvesting seafood. The continents and islands around the world have coastlines totalling around 356,000 kilometres (221,000 ...

on the north-east coast of the island of

Tongatapu Tongatapu is the main island of Tonga and the site of its capital, Nukuʻalofa, Nukualofa. It is located in Tonga's southern island group, to which it gives its name, and is the country's most populous island, with 74,611 residents (2016), 70.5% o ...

, Kingdom of

Tonga Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands, of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in the southern Pacific Ocean. accordin ...

. In January 2008,

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

archaeologist David V. Burley claimed that it was the " cradle of Polynesia".

Archaeological importance

In 2007, Burley led an archaeological team conducting digs at a site in Nukuleka, and uncovered pieces of

Lapita The Lapita culture is the name given to a Neolithic Austronesian people and their distinct material culture, who settled Island Melanesia via a seaborne migration at around 1600 to 500 BCE. The Lapita people are believed to have originated fro ...

pottery which they estimated to be about 2,900 years old. Burley stated: "Tonga was the first group of islands in

Polynesia Polynesia ( , ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in ...

to be settled by the

people...and Nukuleka was their first settlement in Tonga.". This finding challenged claims made by

Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa and known until 1997 as Western Samoa, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania, in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu), two smaller, inhabited ...

which, in the words of a New Zealand journalist, "has advertised itself for decades as the 'cradle of Polynesia'". According to Burley, it was at Nukuleka that

Melanesia Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from New Guinea in the west to the Fiji Islands in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Vanu ...

n settlers developed a new culture and social structures, thus becoming a distinct people, "Polynesians", before setting out to colonise the uninhabited islands of Polynesia. In 2012, Burley and his team reported Uranium-thorium dating of a coral file (abrader) found at Nukuleka of 888 BC (2,838 BP), thus providing a precise date for the earliest settlement of Nukuleka. However, Burley's conclusions have been questioned by Okusitino Māhina, lecturer in Pacific Political Economy and Pacific Arts Anthropology at the

University of Auckland The University of Auckland (; Māori: ''Waipapa Taumata Rau'') is a public research university based in Auckland, New Zealand. The institution was established in 1883 as a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. Initially loc ...

."Anthropologist rejects Tonga 'cradle of Polynesia' theory"
Radio Australia, 11 January 2008

Climate

References

{{reflist Populated places in Tonga Tongatapu