Several books have been written about the people of Melanesia, a famous one by William Howells in 1973 called The Pacific Islanders. Melanesian people today show a range of morphological features - some have very (very!) dark skin, while others are much lighter; some are tall and robust, while others are among the shortest people in the world; some have heavy brows and others a smooth forehead. To what extent this extraordinary diversity reflects ancestral differences, population adaptation to the range of environments in the islands, genetic drift, varying levels of admixture between Papuans and Austronesians…. are all questions still being tackled by scientists, including the anthropologists working in the project "Pioneers of Island Melanesia"