Melanesia - online puzzles

Melanesia (UK:, US: ) is a subregion of Oceania extending from New Guinea island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Tonga.

The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, as well as the French special collectivity of New Caledonia, and parts of Indonesia – particularly Western New Guinea, East Nusa Tenggara, and Maluku. Most of the region is in the Southern Hemisphere, most of North Maluku and a few small northwestern islands of Western New Guinea are in the Northern Hemisphere.

The name Melanesia (in French Mélanésie) was first used by Jules Dumont d'Urville in 1832 to denote an ethnic and geographical grouping of islands whose inhabitants he thought were distinct from those of Micronesia and Polynesia.

Etymology

The name Melanesia, from Greek μέλας, black, and νῆσος, island, etymologically means "islands of black [people]", in reference to the dark skin of the inhabitants.

The concept among Europeans of Melanesia as a distinct region evolved gradually over time as their expeditions mapped and explored the Pacific. Early European explorers noted the physical differences among groups of Pacific Islanders. In 1756 Charles de Brosses theorized that there was an "old black race" in the Pacific who were conquered or defeated by the peoples of what is now called Polynesia, whom he distinguished as having lighter skin. In the first half of the nineteenth century Jean Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent and Jules Dumont d'Urville identified Melanesians as a distinct racial group. Over time, however, Europeans increasingly viewed Melanesia as a distinct cultural, rather than racial, area.