Polynesian navigation and the settlement of the Pacific
Ancestral Polynesian voyagers settled the islands of the eastern Pacific by deliberate, navigated open-ocean crossing, using knowledge of stars, swells, winds, and bird flight. High-precision radiocarbon dating of the most reliable samples across East Polynesia indicates that the central archipelagos were settled from about 1025–1120 CE and the outer islands, including Hawaiʻi, New Zealand, and Rapa Nui, between roughly 1190 and 1290 CE — a rapid dispersal rather than a slow drift. Experimental voyaging by the Polynesian Voyaging Society's canoe Hōkūleʻa, sailing without instruments since 1976, has demonstrated that these routes are navigable by traditional wayfinding.
Sources
- J. M. Wilmshurst, T. L. Hunt, C. P. Lipo & A. J. Anderson, "High-precision radiocarbon dating shows recent and rapid initial human colonization of East Polynesia," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108(5): 1815–1820 (2011).
- P. V. Kirch, On the Road of the Winds: An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands before European Contact (University of California Press).
- Polynesian Voyaging Society — voyaging record of Hōkūleʻa (hokulea.com).












