Oceania (Prehistory and History)
Oceania is rightly called the youngest continent;
it is the one that was most recently inhabited by
humans, most recently discovered and colonized by
Europeans and then only partially decolonized.
Oceania (Prehistory and History - The Alien
Ships)
European notions of a large, as yet unknown
continent, Terra Australis Incognita, lured from the
early 1500's. a growing flow of ships to the area.
As the first European, Fernando de Magellan crossed
the Pacific in 1520-21. Spanish, Dutch, British, and
French explorers followed, but the final mapping of
Oceania's islands was first carried out by James
Cook in the late 1700's.
With the industrial revolution in Europe and the
United States, the need for raw materials and
markets increased, and most oceanic peoples
therefore came during the 1800's. in ever-increasing
contact with traders, whalers, recruiters,
missionaries, and colonists. Many of the local
populations were drastically reduced by external
diseases, and iron tools and firearms brought about
great upheavals in all communities. The widespread
Christian missionary activity at the same time had a
strengthening and subversive effect on the
communities; strengthening because it defended
against the worst abuses of the whites and created
the basis for a new cultural exchange, subversive
because it broke down the existing basis of life and
created a negative view of the cultural heritage. In
Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii, a massive influx
of foreigners. According to
AbbreviationFinder, the largest countries in
Oceania are Australia and New Zealand. For largest
cities in Oceania by population, please follow
AllCityPopulation.
Oceania (Prehistory and History - Colonial
Times)
Oceania's location in relation to the world's
economic and political centers was a major reason
why a direct colonization took place so relatively
late. In New Zealand, colonial rule was officially
introduced in 1840, but in the New Hebrides (now
Vanuatu) only in 1906. Spain, Britain, France,
Germany, Japan, USA, Chile, New Zealand and
Australia have all had colonial control over areas
in the region, the latter two as deputies or
successors to the British colonial power. In most
places, colonial times were marked by control and
management and involved only minimal economic
development or education of the local population. In
some countries listed by
Countryaah.com, such as Fiji, New Caledonia,
Nauru and Ocean Island, where the colonial power
could exploit special resources through mining or
plantation operations.
Oceania (Prehistory and History - Migrations)
There is still a great deal of uncertainty about
Oceania's prehistory, but some probable main lines
can be drawn. More than 40,000 years ago, Australian
hunters and gatherers crossed the waters around the
Wallace Line in simple vessels between Borneo and
Sulawesi and settled in New Guinea and Australia.
The descendants of these people have gradually
spread over most of Melanesia. Around 3000 BC. the
first Mongoloid and Austronesian-speaking peoples
from the Southeast Asian islands penetrated into
Melanesia. Their culture included farming with
simple tools and pig farming, forms of business that
also the Australoids in the Melanesian area seem to
have developed. The Austronesians spread to most
Melanesian islands, and there was cultural contact
with the Papuan peoples, through dosing.
Austronesian coastal settlements in the
Melanesian region, particularly characterized by
characteristic lapita clay vessels and the ability
to build and sail canoes, are dated to approximately
1500 BC From these peoples descended the first to
settle in Fiji and in Western Polynesia around 1300
BC. Starting in Tonga and Samoa, the gradual spread
of people to all other parts of Polynesia continued.
Easter Island was reached 300-500 AD, Hawaii
approximately 650, and New Zealand approximately
700. It is likely that the peoples of Central and
Eastern Micronesia are also direct descendants of
Austronesian Lapita people from Melanesia or Western
Polynesia, while Western Micronesia has probably
been populated from the islands of Southeast Asia.
Oceania (Prehistory and History - Independence)
The worldwide decolonization reached Oceania
relatively late. Samoa gained independence from New
Zealand in 1962, and for the next two decades many
other states followed. The US-dominated territories
of Micronesia except Guam became independent in the
1980's after difficult negotiations, while American
Samoa has maintained a close connection with the
United States. Hawaii was admitted as a state in the
United States in 1959. France, as the only colonial
power of the past, maintains control of its
possessions of New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and
Wallis and Futuna.
Modern oceanic societies are marked by colonial
migrations and demarcations. In Papua New Guinea, an
independence movement in Bougainville that belongs
to Papua New Guinea but feels more closely linked to
the Solomon Islands has waged an armed struggle
against the state. In Fiji, equal groups of
Melanesians and Fiji Indians (introduced as labor by
the British colonial power) face each other in an
ethnic conflict that in 1987 triggered a Melanesian
military coup. In New Caledonia, canons have made
several futile attempts to gain independence through
armed uprising against the French-dominated
majority. In New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii, the
antagonisms between the indigenous minorities and
the white majorities have led to numerous serious
conflicts since the 1970's.
Oceanic societies are characterized by an
increasing divide between the educated elite
attached to the state and the general population,
which is tied to the subsistence economy.
Externally, the countries' economic dependence on
the foreign powers, which have special interests in
the area, continues. |
