The Extinctions: Inner Melanesia - the Bismarcks & Solomons

Late Pleistocene scene on New Ireland. From left to right the animals shown are: Homo sapiens, Cacatua sp., Porphyrio sp., a ribbon-tailed drongo (Dicrurus megarhynchus), a D'Albertis' python (Leiopython albertisii), pied coucals (Centropus ateralbus), an introduced grey cuscus (Phalanger orientalism) and Bismarck hanging parrots (Loriculus tener).

Terms of use: Artwork by Hodari Nundu and Commissioned by The Extinctions

“Politically separate, geographically sundered, that [the Bismarck and Solomon islands] in any way constitute a historical or ecological unity may seem questionable. Yet there runs between them a deep connection, particularly in the study of their ancient extinctions: they, together, constitute the utmost extremity of humanity’s great Pleistocene trek. When the first wave of colonists drew across the seas of Wallacea, they did not stop on the jungle-plains of Sahul. They continued, over the Bismarck Sea, colonising New Britain and New Ireland by at least 33,000 BC, and the Solomons only shortly after. They were the most remote settlement of humanity anywhere in the world. But here, at last, they stopped. The leap across the vast Coral Sea to the Vanuatu and beyond remained a bridge too far, and one that would not be crossed till the coming of a new people, over 30,000 years later. This, then, is the line between Inner and Outer Melanesia—30,000 years of human history, settlement and impact. 30,000 years of extinction.”

My 2024 article for The Extinctions detailing the palaeofaunas, human settlement and ancient extinctions on the Bismarck and Solomon archipelagos in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea.