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An ambitious experiment to trace the migration route of the Polynesians as they colonised the pacific is underway! A team of made up of scientists, cameramen and native sailors are seeking to retrace maritime passage by island-hopping from Philippines eastwards to the Polynesian islands of Tikopia and Anuta (see route here). The Polynesian migration into the pacific was one of the largest in the history of man, and exceptional because it occured over water, and in a relatively short period of time (1,000 years). Linguistic and DNA evidence has shown that the Polynesians, along with much of island Southeast Asia, were part of a population originating from Taiwan around 5,000 to 6,000 BC, which travelled down Philippines before spreading east and west.
 Lapita Voyage
6,000km trip to reveal clues to ancient migration
06 November 2008, Eureka Alerts
The ‘Lapita Voyage’ – in honour of the greatest seafaring people in the history of Man, the Polynesians
2,500 years ago the central Pacific islands were uninhabited.
These central Pacific islands are scattered over 1/3 of our globe’s surface. That is an area larger than the surface of the moon.
Within a thousand years the Polynesians had settled this vast area of remote islands.
No other ethnic people have ever established settlement over a wider ocean area.
The Polynesian Triangle: Hawaii (north) – Easter Island (east) – New Zealand (west), equivalent in area to London – Calcutta – Dar-es-Salam
Related Books:
– The Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagascar (Routledge Language Family Series, 7)
– The position of the Polynesian languages within the Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) language family (Indiana University publications in anthropology and linguistics)
– Wangka: Austronesian Canoe Origins
– Man’s conquest of the Pacific: The prehistory of Southeast Asia and Oceania
– Prehistory in the Pacific Islands
– Southeast Asia: From Prehistory to History
– Southeast Asia: From Prehistory to History
– Archaeology of Oceania: Australia and the Pacific Islands (Blackwell Studies in Global Archaeology)
