on 15 july 2005, it was reported that the same teams had uncovered 16 skeletons at bourewa, near natadola. the skeletons were found in a layer of undisturbed soil containing pottery from around 550 bc. professor nunn said there was now abundant evidence that bourewa had been the first human settlement in the fiji archipelago, occupied from around 1200 bc onwards. ""lapita people were the first people to come to fiji, vanuatu, new caledonia, tonga and samoa. these people left evidence of their existence by mainly their elaborately decorated and finely fashioned pottery,"" nunn said. he said the evidence pointed to papua new guinea or the solomon islands as the place from where the earliest fijians came, as the pottery fragments were typical of the early lapita period in papua new guinea and the solomons, but not readily found on lapita pottery in fiji.