Human Saga

Rapid Dispersal Pulse Settling East Polynesia

c. 1190-1290 CE·Exploration & colonisation·Oceania·
c. 1190-1290 CEDate
Exploration & colonisationCategory
24Empires active
Date
c. 1190-1290 CE
Category
Exploration & colonisation
Region
Oceania
Era
Post-Classical / Medieval
Significance

Within roughly a single century, around A.D.

1190-1290, Polynesian seafarers discovered and colonised nearly all of the remaining habitable islands of the eastern Pacific, including the Hawaiian archipelago to the north, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) to the southeast, and Aotearoa (New Zealand) to the southwest, along with the Cook, Austral, Marquesas, and other archipelagos. High-precision radiocarbon dating of short-lived samples (a 2011 meta-analysis of 1,434 dates by Wilmshurst, Hunt, Lipo, and Anderson) showed that after an initial settlement of the central Society Islands around A.D. 1025-1120, expansion paused for several generations before erupting in this one major pulse. The dispersal spanned an oceanic region larger than North America and reached far-flung islands at nearly simultaneous dates, making it the fastest oceanic colonisation in human prehistory. These 15 archipelagos were the last habitable places on Earth to be settled, completing the global human diaspora. The achievement reflected sophisticated double-hulled voyaging canoes, wayfinding by stars, swells, and birds, and deliberate two-way exploratory navigation across open ocean.

See the world map in c. 1190-1290 CE →More exploration & colonisationThe Post-Classical / Medieval era

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Empires active in c. 1190-1290 CE

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Further reading

The wider story

A History of the Pacific Islands

Steven Roger Fischer

Accessible overview of Oceania, including the Tongan maritime empire.

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