Rough draft: Monster Islands

Monster Islands
By Paco D. Taylor

In the classic giant monster movies of Japan, the islands of the South Pacific are home to three of Tokyo's biggest threats: Godzilla, Giant Beast Gappa and King Kong. In real life, these islands are home to some of the biggest threats to anthropology classes everywhere.

Located in the South Pacific Ocean, east of Papua New Guinea, is an archipelago of nearly 1,000 islands. Known collectively as the Solomon Islands, this multi-island nation sits along a volatile seismic strip in the Pacific called the 'Ring of Fire.' It is here that nearly 90% of the world's earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.

The naming of the Solomon Islands (Islas de Salomon) is credited to the Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña, who 'discovered' the islands on an expedition from Peru in 1567. Hyped up by an alleged gold find on the largest of the islands (named Guadalcanal), Mendaña claimed on his return home that he'd found the location of King Solomon's legendary mines.

As is usually the case, though, with many of the places that Euros are vainly credited with discovering, the Solomon Islands were actually discovered thousands of years before the arrival of a 16th century Johnny-come-lately. And the tenants of the Solomons would give Álvaro de Mendaña the welcoming party of his life.

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Workin' on another article for GR. This is a rough draft of the opening, but the text is still very much a work in progress. I didn't have anything else to blog about, so I figured that I'd post this rough. (Please pardon the dust.)

Though the text still has a long way to go, I think it's off to a fairly good start. Unlike the last article, this one already has a good working title. It also has some really good pictures too.