Polynesians push east
Deliberate voyaging carries settlers across thousands of kilometres of empty ocean.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 300 years
- Known to
- ± 100 years
- Era
- Classical, Holocene
From bases in Samoa and Tonga, Polynesian navigators sail east into the largest empty space on the planet, reaching the Marquesas and Society Islands in the first millennium CE. They navigate by stars, swell patterns, cloud formations and bird behaviour, sailing upwind so that a failed search allows a run home. They carry a portable ecosystem — taro, breadfruit, pigs, chickens, dogs — because an unpopulated island has nothing to eat.