Figuring out Oceania migration timeline

Around 3,500 years ago the earliest ancestors of many Pacific people and Māori – the people provisionally named Lapita – appeared in Oceania. Records of the...

A more precise timeline now shows Aotearoa was first settled in the North Island before the settlers expanded south and then retreated again when the climate...

Puzzling out Pacific migrations explores possible reasons for the long pause between two phases of migration across the Pacific. It shows how scientists interpret data patterns...

This article explores Pacific migration and offers scientific and technological explanations for a thousand year gap between settlements in West Polynesia and East Polynesia.