Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP)
The study of the ichthyofaunal corpus yielded by the archaeological site of Teouma, Efate Island, Vanuatu, has
revealed the unexpected presence of a significant number of bones of Eleotridae (Sleepers) on the site, as early as
2920–2870 cal. B.P. Out of the 8560 identified fish remains associated with the Lapita layers, which document
the period of initial settlement of the archipelago, 1368 have been determined as belonging to eleotrids, including
species of the genera Giuris, Ophiocara and Eleotris. They represent 16% of the corpus and occupy second