History
Along with New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands, the Admiralty Islands were first inhabited approximately 40,000 years ago, in the initial wave of migration out of Southeast Asia that also populated Australia. This early society appears to have cultivated taro, and to have deliberately introduced wild animals from New Guinea such as bandicoots and large rats. Obsidian was gathered and traded throughout the Admiralty Islands archipelago.
The Lapita culture arose around 3,500 years ago, and its extent ranged from the Admiralty Islands to Tonga and Samoa. Its origins are contested, but it may well have been a product of another wave of migration from Southeast Asia. Lapita society featured renowned pottery, stilt houses, the introduction of domestic animals such as pigs, dogs, and chickens, and substantial developments in agriculture and boat technology, allowing long distance trade to develop. Lapita society, as a distinct culture and extended trade network, collapsed around 2,000 years ago.
The first European to visit the islands was the Dutch navigator Willem Schouten in 1616. The name 'Admiralty Islands' was devised by Captain Philip Carteret of the British Royal Navy in 1767.
Between 1884 and 1914 the area was administered as a German colony. In November 1914, the islands were occupied by troops of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force landed from the SS Siar. A few shots fired from a machine gun on Siar over the heads of the tiny German garrison at Lorengau were the last shots fired in the battle. After the war, the islands were governed by the Commonwealth of Australia under a League of Nations mandate.
Japanese troops landed on Manus Island on 7 April 1942. In 1944, Japanese forces occupying the islands were attacked and defeated by Allied forces in Operation Brewer. Subsequently a large American airbase was built at Lombrum near Lorengau.
Following Papuan independence in 1975, sovereignty of the Admiralty Islands was transferred from Australia to Papua New Guinea.
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