Teouma: Vanuatu ~2,900 BP

Rising from the lagoons and reef-fringed shores of Efate, the people interred at Teouma lived during a cinematic era of ocean voyaging and island founding. Archaeological excavations at Teouma (Efate, Vanuatu) have revealed a cemetery associated with the later phases of the Lapita cultural horizon, dated here to roughly 1160–770 BCE. The burial context — multiple graves, ochre traces, shell ornaments and the occasional pottery sherd with dentate-stamped decoration — places these individuals within the network of seafaring communities that spread Austronesian material culture across Remote Oceania.

Archaeological data indicates that Teouma occupied a frontier zone where incoming Austronesian voyagers encountered island Melanesian landscapes and peoples. Limited evidence from material culture and the cemetery architecture suggests sustained settlement rather than transient landings. Genetic data from the four sampled individuals offers a tantalizing, though preliminary, glimpse into this formative encounter: a uniform maternal signal (mtDNA B) consistent with Austronesian-associated lineages, and a smaller male-line signal of haplogroup O. Together with regional archaeological patterns, these strands point toward complex processes of migration, interaction, and local adaptation — but the small sample set means models of origin and admixture remain provisional.

The genetic dataset from Teouma is small but informative. Four individuals dated to 1160–770 BCE were analyzed: all four carried mitochondrial haplogroup B, while a single male sample carried Y-chromosome haplogroup O. mtDNA B lineages are widely associated with Austronesian expansions across Island Southeast Asia and into the Pacific; their presence at Teouma aligns with an expectation of maternal ancestry derived from island-hopping seafarers. Y haplogroup O is likewise common in East and Southeast Asian populations and is often detected in Austronesian-speaking groups, suggesting at least some paternal ancestry tracing toward those source regions.

Importantly, the autosomal picture that emerges in broader Pacific ancient-DNA studies typically shows mixtures of Austronesian-related and Papuan-related ancestry — a complex admixture often varying by island and period. For Teouma specifically, autosomal resolution is limited by the small sample count and available coverage; therefore any claims about proportions of Papuan vs Austronesian ancestry must remain provisional. Because only four samples were analyzed, and only one Y-chromosome was recovered, these genetic signals should be treated as a preliminary snapshot that complements, rather than definitively resolves, the archaeological narrative.