Exciting new findings reveal the oldest city found on a Pacific Island, constructed around 300 AD in Tonga. Thanks to advanced LiDAR scanning, researchers from the Australian National University have mapped the remains of this 1,700-year-old city in Tongatapu, uncovering fascinating details about ancient urban life way before European contact.

Tongan woman, Tonga, by Careena Tipoti

Bears, sharks? They get to be grumpy all they want. But me? Can I have a bad day? Oh, no, I’m the friendly dove! Oh so friendly! *waddles away muttering incoherently*

Tongan Ground Dove (Pampusana stairi) AKA Friendly Ground Dove

Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Wallis and Futuna

Status: Vulnerable

Threats: habitat loss

Milton Vickery - Tongan woman preparing tapa cloth, 1928

"In New Zealand, Pacific Island scientists have just been given a large grant to run a study trial on the use of the traditional kava preparation and kava ceremony for treating PTSD.

Believing it could help treat PTSD and other trauma in soldiers and veterans, police officers, and corrections facility staff, the two scientists want to revise the reputation of kava, which was damaged by a pharmaceutical rush into the product some years ago.

Dr. Apo Aporosa of Fijian descent on his mother’s side, and Dr. Sione Vaka from Tonga, have received $1 million from the Health Research Council to combine kava drink with the traditional ceremony of conversation.

“I’m so stoked that Health Research Council has faith in us as a team to do this critically important work,” Dr. Aporosa told the NZ Herald. “It’s likely we’re going to spend a million dollars to prove what traditional Pacific knowledge has been trying to tell Europeans for the last 200 years.”

Kava comes in many traditional names, all relating to the root of the Piper methysticum plant. Across the islands of the Pacific, the root was stirred in water and drank for its subtle euphoric, but also sedative properties. Accompanying the drink was a Talanoa or what Dr. Aporosa is referring to as “talk therapy,” but what was essentially a heart-to-heart conversation.

Their study will take two groups of people and give them both the whole kava drink plus the talanoa, referred to as “the full package” while another group will receive just the talanoa, and another group just the kavalactones—the active ingredient in the plant.

In 2009, the Cochrane Institute confirmed that kava was probably more effective than placebo for treating anxiety. At the time, pharmaceutical and supplement companies had quickly isolated kavalactones and sold them as a natural relaxant.

Like most indigenous populations, New Zealand’s Māori population suffers from higher rates of stress, trauma, and anxiety than the national average, and the Health Research Council believes that the Kava ceremony is the most sensible way to fulfill this unmet need.

“We do know that… talk therapy works for some PTSD cases,” Dr. Aporosa said, adding that talanoa is basically talk therapy, done while sitting on the floor rather than in chairs.

“We know that kava has relaxant properties, that kava is a natural anti-anxiety medication, so we combine those two elements in a culturally influenced space, and we’ve got something here that’s unique.”

Aporosa understands the situation better than most. Not only is he from Pacific stock, but he was a police officer who had to leave the force due to PTSD from the line of duty.

His experience traveling the world speaking with former military and police got him the Fulbright Scholarship to study the kava ceremony in Hawai’i, another island culture that uses the plant.

His hope is to show that it works significantly in the trial, and then release a free e-book about how to perform the ceremony and intervention, in order to ensure the largest number of people can access the knowledge of this traditional Pacific medicine."

-via Good News Network, July 5, 2023

​An unprecedentedly violent volcanic eruption that triggered a tsunami off the Pacific island nation of Tonga in 2022 unleashed the fastest underwater currents ever recorded, according to a study published on Thursday. The submerged Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai Volcano sent rocks, ash and gas racing across the seafloor at 122 kilometers (76 miles) per hour in January last year, found the paper published in the journal Science. The eruption – the most powerful ever recorded with modern equipment – triggered a deadly tsunami and "avalanche-like flows" of material that damaged underwater telecommunications cables connecting Tonga with the rest of the world. A research team led by scientists from Britain's National Oceanography Centre (NOC) used the timings and locations of cable damage to calculate the speed of the flows. The volcano's eruption plume, up to 57 kilometers high, fell directly into the water and onto steep underwater slopes, explained Mike Clare of the NOC. ​The speed and power of the currents were so great that they were capable of running at least 100 kilometers across the seafloor and wrecking the cables, he said. The flows were faster than those triggered by earthquakes, floods or storms, the paper added.

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“ humpback calf and mother “ // 愉yu

Music:  Skott - Overcome

On This Day In History

June 4th, 1970: Tonga gains independence from the British Empire.

Please reblog for a bigger sample size!

If you have any fun fact about Tonga, please tell us and I'll reblog it!

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Record-breaking Tonga volcano disrupted satellite signals in space | Space

The January 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption continues to astound.

An underwater volcanic eruption last year was powerful enough to generate plasma bubbles that disrupted radio communications in outer space, a new study finds.

The new results could lead to ways to avoid satellite and GPS disruptions on Earth, and to learn more about volcanoes on alien worlds, scientists added.

In January 2022, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai submarine volcano — a large, cone-shaped mountain located near the 169 islands of the Kingdom of Tonga in the South Pacific — erupted with a violent explosion. The outburst generated the highest-ever recorded volcanic plume, one reaching 35 miles (57 kilometers) tall, and triggered tsunamis as far away as the Caribbean. All in all, the eruption was the most powerful natural explosion in more than a century...

New Tonga ref!!

Some info:

Tonga is a Krang with a heart of gold, they always want what’s best for others and is always eager to make friends. They crashed landed on earth thousands of years ago with no memory of who they were, or where they came from. So earth has been the only home they’ve ever known. Though, they have always felt like something was missing.

They currently live in the hidden city, but will occasionally go up to the surface to look at the sights. Or hang out with friends they have made.

BACK TO BACK CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD

🏆🏆🏆

Happy Pride!

Wearing a tiaré flower in your ear is such a small and simplistic thing, yet it carries so much history and culture with it!

🇵🇫🇹🇴🇼🇸

A humpback whale calf plays near the ocean’s surface off the coast of Tonga

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Tonga volcano eruption causing 2023 heat

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