The Fiji Islands are part of Melanesia, one of the large regions within Oceania. They are situated geographically in the easternmost part of this area. Islands belonging to Polynesia can be found very near to the East, thus making the Fiji Islands a contact zone toward several Polynesian groups. It is assumed that the Islands were first settled by the direct ancestors of the Polynesian people (Kirch, 1997). While formerly it was suggested that there was later strong contact and thus adsorbed influences from some Melanesian Islands, newest archaeological evidence does not seem to support this (Clark & Anderson, 2011). It is interesting that vernacular architecture found on parts of the islands nevertheless shows very strong parallels to Melanesian building types (for a more detailed discussion on this, see Freeman, 1986, p. 16). While Polynesian influence in the form of Samoan and Tongan cultural ideas and architecture is more recent and well documented, the possible direct Melanesian...
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Zamolyi, F. (2015). Architecture of Fiji. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3934-5_10215-1
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