Post #164650 by nuimaleko on Wed, Jun 8, 2005 11:23 PM

It is known that the Hawaiian Islands were occupied at the time of the Tahitian invasion and occupation. Who exactly the occupants were and what happended to them is not known. One source suggests Marquasans where the first occupants. But new evidence points to Oceanic negritos. Anthropilogists and genetisists are finding that negritos were the first modern humans to occupy South East.Pockets are still found in the mountains of mainland South East Asia. They still occupy the Andaman Islands and the mountains of the Phillipines and they occupied Tasmania until the 19th century. They were probably the foundation of modern melinesian populations with later racial admixtures. They were obvioulsy great sea men to have reached such far flung destinations in the Indo-Pacific. All Pacific migrations originated from South East Asia, so it would not be impossible for them to have discovered and settled the Hawaiian Islands first. It would explain the noted size difference with the Tahitians who were among the tallest people on earth. They were either slaughtered or made slaves and eventualy died out. There was no trace of them left by Cook's time except the stone works that Polynesians claimed they did not create and attributed to the menehune. There may have been a Marquasan settlement before the Tahitian invasion, but by Cook's time the Hawaiians were all of Tahitian ancestry as shown by thier geneologies and genetics. So the modern day relatives of the menahune may be living in the Phillipines or the mountains of South East Asia