The first explorers had no maps or navigational instruments, and there has been spirited debate among sailors and scholars as to how they settled the region. Early theories ranged from mythical hero navigators who discovered new lands and returned home with sailing directions, to accidental voyagers who drifted away from islands to which they could not return. Complicating the argument was the myth of a South American origin, advocated by some 19th-century scholars and popularised in the 20th century by the archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl. Read more...
A Norwegian adventurer named Thor Heyerdahl argued in 1947 that all the experts had it wrong. He argued that it was not possible for the Polynesians to have sailed east from Melanesia into the Polynesian triangle because both the winds and currents constantly would have been against them. Instead, Heyerdahl proposed that the Polynesians must have left the west coast of South America and sailed westwards into Polynesia. Read more...
The Pacific was the first ocean to be explored and settled, and its history is one of the voyages. New Zealand, isolated far to the south, was the last substantial land mass to be reached.
There were two distinct voyaging periods.
Ancient voyaging: from Asia to Near Oceania
The origins of the Pacific’s diverse peoples can be traced back along seaways to mainland Asia. The people of the ancient period (50,000–25,000 BC) had a palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) technology and a hunting and foraging economy. Setting off in simple rafts, they gradually dispersed through the large islands of South-East Asia. Eventually, they reached Australia and New Guinea, which were then connected by a land bridge.