@Kavasseur ..
The proto-Australians and original PNG people didn't get far, other than more recently what is now the eastern island groups of PNG and western Solomons. It has been shown pretty conclusively that Australia and PNG people did not form the origin of the inhabitants of the main Melanesian islands, which were still unpopulated tens of thousands of years after evidence of people in Australia and New Guinea. The Australian aborigines just weren't seafaring folk.
There have been dozens of long detailed studies on migration through Melanesia and Polynesia over the last 50 years or so and the migration patterns are fairly well established - but this new DNA link found on the earliest ever lapita site in Teouma has really ended any doubt that Vanuatu was first permanently settled by the original inhabitants of Taiwan & the Philippines (ie long before the Chinese influence). This was already 99% generally known through language and lapita studies, but they have never had the chance to do DNA analysis of skeletons found at the earliest known lapita site before. I've visited the site a few times over the last 13 years or so since it was discovered - its extremely slow work. It was only found because some expat was making huge excavations for a prawn farm and recognised some of the pottery shards that were surfacing.
The blond hair gene you mention is only generally seen in the Banks/Torres islands of Vanuatu (far north, near the Solomons) and the southern Solomons - you don't see it up in the Western Province or Choisel etc. (You sometimes see it in Santo and even Ambae but this can usually be traced back to a marriage to a Banks islander). So this is a particular genetic trait seen in the area between modern day north Vanuatu & south Solomons - not widespread across the 2 countries. It could well have been brought in by a later back-migration and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the "origin" question. It is also seen in the eastern island groups of New Guinea like New Britain - so could have come from there some time over the last 2-3000 years to the modern-day southern Solomons or northern Vanuatu.
The Solomons has always been something of a buffer region, being at the centre of trade routes between Vanuatu and the eastern PNG island groups, so all kinds of genetic influences could have spread through that way long after the original colonisation of Vanuatu.
Its a subject that I've enjoyed reading about for years, and there is always something new coming up. I guess the reality is that we can only describe the main migrations, and that there will always be anomalies that will keep researchers busy for a while yet..
@Alia ..yes you're right - I meant "given where all the noble varieties
were" not "
are" - as in originated from. No doubt other countries have their noble varieties.
