miles (27,556 square kilometers) of land. There are a total of 992 islands in the Solomon Islands History When Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira visited the Solomon Islands in 1568, he found some gold at the mouth, he erroneously thought that this could be one of the locations in which King Solomon (the Israelite monarch) obtained gold for his temple in Jerusalem. Mendaña then named the islands after King Solomon--Solomon Islands. Papuan-speaking hunter-gatherers from New Guinea were settling the southern and eastern Solomon Islands by 25, 000 BC. They were the only inhabitants for thousands of years, until Austronesian-speaking proto-Melanesians began moving in around 4000 BC. Most people lived in small villages on tribal lands, practicing shifting cultivation, fishing, hunting, carving, weaving and canoe building. They worshipped ancestors. They were also head-hunters and cannibalism was common. Demography
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