Welcome back to Oceania, explorers! Bryan with you today as we head to two new regions:
Melanesia and Micronesia. Sorry for passing through here so quickly. I'm just trying to
find a place to land our helicopter so we can get out and take this place in!
Isn't Palau just gorgeous? Seriously, though, where do people park around here?
[Music plays]
As we get started, it'd be great to have your PDF for this lesson printed out so you can follow
along with the lesson guide. Today's learning goals are to identify the regions of Melanesia
and Micronesia on a map, to determine what makes them distinct perceptual and formal regions,
and to identify and characterize the nations within them.
To start, take a look at page 2 in the PDF, and work through the anticipatory set.
Got it all finished? All right, explorers! We've got
millions of miles of the Pacific Ocean to cover today, so let's get right to it!
Melanesia's name is derived from the Greek words for "black" and "islands." This area
is a historical meeting ground for Indigenous Australians and Papuans.
Tens of thousands of years ago, this region looked a little different. It was a larger prehistoric
continent known as Sahul. Don't mix that up with Sahel, a dry area just south of the Sahara Desert.
Melanesia spans 3,500 miles, from Papua New Guinea in the northwest to Fiji in the southeast,
and has a tropical climate year-round. The nations within Melanesia include Fiji, Papua New Guinea,
the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. Fiji is 1,100 miles northeast of New Zealand and
contains more than 330 islands, only a third of which are inhabited. Fijians are known for rugby;
kava, a medicinal drink; and the soft corals of the great Astrolabe Reef.
These lands were once known as the "Cannibal Isles," as the consumption of human flesh was
a rare religious practice and sometimes associated with revenge or bravado. Let's
think about that. During the Age of Exploration, Europeans' descriptions of these places affected
the way that many westerners perceived them. How do you think the name "Cannibal Isles" affected
perceptions of Fiji and its inhabitants? Do you think that the island's reputation had an impact
on interactions like trade relations with other countries? As Christianity spread into the region,
the practice eventually ended. In 2003, Nabutautau villagers issued a public apology
to the descendants of Christian missionary Thomas Becker, who was cannibalized in 1867.
Aside from British and Papuan, the largest ethnic group in Fiji is Indian,
as many have immigrated to work in the sugarcane industry. Fiji Hindi is now an official language,
along with English and Fijian. Papua New Guinea is at the crossroads between
southeast Asia and Oceania. It shares an island with Indonesia's Papua and West Papua. With a
population of over 9 million and over 850 languages, Papua New Guinea is the largest
and most diverse country in Melanesia. This is matched by its biodiversity as well.
There are 1,000 Solomon Islands, but most of the nation's 680,000 people are concentrated
on about 80 of them. Guadalcanal is the site of the first major U.S. land invasion against
Japan in World War II, and Vanuatu has the most languages per capita of any nation,
with over a hundred languages spoken by a total of just 307,000 people. These four countries vary
greatly. They have many different languages and people groups, they were formerly colonized by
different European powers, and they each have their own unique ecology.
So what do you think unifies Melanesia into a distinct perceptual region, separate from
Polynesia, Micronesia, and Australasia? It has to do with the genetic makeup of the Papuan and
Austronesian people who live here. Let's learn more as we make our way north to...
Micronesia is north of Melanesia and west of Polynesia.
Its name comes from the Greek words for "small" and "islands."
Determining who first settled the region is difficult. These ancient populations were using
the earliest ocean-going vessels in human history, such as wooden catamarans and outrigger boats,
and the sea levels are much higher, so most of the evidence is, unfortunately, lost.
Linguistic analysis connects Micronesians to all other regions in Oceania, but genetic
testing shows an interaction with Taiwanese immigrants, dating as far back as 5000 B.C.E.
Melanesian tests do not have hardly any of these Taiwanese genetic markers,
which sets these groups apart perceptually.
What does this genetic information reveal about the history of Micronesia?
That's right! The genetic code of Indigenous populations reveals data about previous
interaction and a relationship with seafarers from East Asia. This left
behind a unique appearance and culture, distinct from other regions in Oceania.
Explorers recognized a perceptual difference between Micronesia and Melanesia for this
reason, and as that perceptual difference led those explorers to give Micronesia and
Melanesia different region names, they have become distinct formal regions on maps too.
Micronesia has several independent island nations, including the Federated States of Micronesia,
Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, and Palau. The Federated States of Micronesia
has been independent since 1986 and is known for Nan Madol, sometimes called the "Venice
of the East." It's a UNESCO site that is a group of small artificial islands connected by canals.
The Federated States of Micronesia have over a million miles of territorial waters,
making it one of the largest exclusive economic zones in the world, and yet it only accounts for
about 271 square miles of land. Let's take a second to think about that. The Federation
of Micronesia contains a number of loosely related islands spread across a vast area. What
challenges do you think this poses to domestic trade, resource allocation, and governance?
Kiribati won its independence from the U.K. in 1979. Because of its very specific location,
Kiribati is the only country in the world with land in all four of the hemispheres. The
Marshall islands are home to U.S. military bases that were originally built by Japan
in the 1940s. The United States has a partnership with the Marshall Islands because
it is an ideal location for planes to stop to refuel if needed during trans-Pacific flights.
Some of the U.S. nuclear testing has been done in the Bikini Atoll.
Nauru is the world's smallest republic, with only 8.1 square miles of land.
Only the Vatican and Monaco have less land area. Palau is home to a matriarchal society,
with family ties passed down through the women of the family. It has no military of its own,
but the United States has agreed to defend it so that it can have a military base there.
The U.S. has a few territories in this region of Oceania as well. Guam is the largest island
in Micronesia, with 210 square miles of land. The Chamorro are the largest ethnic
group on the island, but they represent less than half of the people. Of course,
as a U.S. territory in the Pacific, it's also home to a major military base. Sensing a trend?
The Northern Mariana Islands are also administered by the U.S.
The largest ethnic group here too is Chamorro. Its people have voted several times for integration
with Guam, but Guam's voters have rejected it. The U.S. also owns Wake Island, which is
about two-thirds of the way between Hawaii and Guam, and is sometimes used as a refueling base.
We hope that getting to know Melanesia and Micronesia has been a good review of the
themes of geography that we touched upon way back at the beginning of the course. Be sure to look
in your PDF for activities that will expand on that, and until next time, keep exploring!