According to recent researches, settlers coming from the mainland inhabited the island during the 8th millennium BC, developing the Aceramic Neolithic Civilisation, of which Choirokoitia is a fine example.

UNESCO: Choirokoitia

Nearly 2, 000 years ago, the indigenous Northwest people inhabited the remote Anthony Island as well as other spits of land that make up the Queen Charlotte Islands, sandwiched between the Hecate Strait and the Pacific. (In the Haida tongue, Anthony Island is known as SGang Gwaay and Queen Charlotte is Haida Gwaii.) The tribes' people, whose population likely peaked at more than 7, 000 archipelago-wide, were Neptunes of the sea.

UNESCO: Culture

It's the world's most remote inhabited island chain -- so precariously occupied that when a volcanic vent erupted in 1961, the whole population was evacuated to England.

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In some neighborhoods boarded-up houses and empty lots island the remaining inhabited homes, which shrink behind spreading foliage lest they be next.

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Mr Lankford vividly paints the picture in nearby Cape Clear, an inhabited island five miles north-east of Fastnet.

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Heron Island, for example, is a speck of land on the Barrier Reef inhabited mostly by birds.

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