Settling the Pacific

55 ka – 201725 items

migrationpacific
Hōkūleʻa arriving in Honolulu from Tahiti, 1976. Photo: Phil Uhl. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Hōkūleʻa arriving in Honolulu from Tahiti, 1976. Photo: Phil Uhl. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Island by island, across a third of the planet

Between about 3,300 years ago and 1300 CE, people sailing canoes without instruments found and settled almost every habitable island in the Pacific, from New Guinea’s offshore islands to Hawaiʻi, Rapa Nui and Aotearoa. It was the last great human settlement of new land, and it was done upwind, on purpose, carrying a whole farming world along.

How it is laid out

  • Deep background — Near Oceania settled tens of thousands of years ago, and the Austronesian expansion out of Taiwan

  • Lapita — the first crossing into Remote Oceania, Vanuatu to Samoa, with its sites nested inside the crossing

  • The long pause and East Polynesia — nearly two thousand years in Tonga and Samoa, then a rush to the far corners of the Polynesian triangle

  • Coda — Tupaia’s chart, the Kon-Tiki theory, and Hōkūleʻa’s voyage to Tahiti in 1976

Two kinds of date

The prehistory is dated by radiocarbon, and the papers report it in calibrated years before present (BP, counted back from 1950). Those items keep that form, with the published range as their uncertainty. From the East Polynesian dispersal on, the papers give calendar years (CE), and so does the timeline. Both are shown on one axis, so you can read a 2,838 BP date beside a 1280 CE one.

Threads to follow

  • navigation — canoes, wayfinding and the long voyages

  • archaeology — the sites and how they were dated

  • farming — the transported landscape: taro, yams, breadfruit, pigs, dogs, chickens and the Pacific rat

  • genetics — what ancient and modern DNA added

  • oral tradition — Hawaiki, Hotu Matuʻa, Nunuku

Oral traditions appear as traditions, beside the archaeological dates rather than inside them. Where scholars disagree — the long and short chronologies, the first date for Hawaiʻi, how the sweet potato crossed — the notes say so.

How shall we account for this Nation spreading it self so far over this Vast ocean? — James Cook, journal, 1778

Items

  1. Near Oceania settled; Remote Oceania empty

    ≈ 46.6 thousand years · Near Oceania: New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and the main Solomons

  2. Austronesian expansion from Taiwan

    1,650 years · Taiwan to the Bismarck Archipelago (schematic)

  3. The Marianas: a first leap into Remote Oceania

    Saipan, Mariana Islands

  4. Lapita

    860 years

  5. Lapita appears in the Bismarck Archipelago

    Talepakemalai, Eloaua Island, Mussau

  6. Lapita voyagers cross into Remote Oceania

    350 years · Lapita dispersal, Bismarcks to Tonga and Samoa (schematic)

  7. Teouma: the first cemetery in Remote Oceania

    Teouma, Efate, Vanuatu

  8. The long pause in West Polynesia

    ≈ 1,875 years · West Polynesia: Tonga, Samoa, ʻUvea and Futuna

  9. Fiji settled: Bourewa

    Bourewa, Rove Peninsula, Viti Levu

  10. Nukuleka: the first Polynesian settlement

    Nukuleka, Tongatapu

  11. Mulifanua: Samoa’s drowned Lapita site

    Mulifanua ferry berth, Upolu, Samoa

  12. First landfall in East Polynesia: the Society Islands

    Samoa to the Society Islands (schematic)

  13. Hawaiʻi settled

    Bellows dune site, Waimānalo, Oʻahu

  14. One pulse to the far corners

    100 years · From the Society Islands to Hawaiʻi, Rapa Nui and Aotearoa (schematic)

  15. Native American contact

    Fatu Hiva, southern Marquesas

  16. Two-way voyaging across East Polynesia

    ≈ 250 years · Kahoʻolawe, Hawaiʻi, to the Tuamotus

  17. Rapa Nui settled

    Anakena, Rapa Nui

  18. Aotearoa settled

    Wairau Bar, Marlborough, Aotearoa

  19. Enderby Island: the southernmost landfall

    Sandy Bay, Enderby Island, Auckland Islands

  20. Kaharoa eruption

    Mount Tarawera, Aotearoa

  21. Moriori settle Rēkohu

    Rēkohu (Chatham Island)

  22. Tupaia’s chart

  23. Kon-Tiki

    3 months, 11 days · Callao, Peru, to Raroia, Tuamotus (direct line, not the drift track)

  24. Hōkūleʻa sails to Tahiti

    1 month, 4 days · Honolua Bay, Maui, to Papeete, Tahiti (direct line, not the sailed track)

  25. Taputapuātea becomes a World Heritage Site

    Taputapuātea marae, Opoa, Raiatea