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Anthropologists have defined Oceania as that region of the Pacific Ocean that encompasses three distinct geographical areas—Polynesia, meaning "many islands"; Micronesia, meaning "small islands"; and Melanesia, meaning "black islands." Other definitions of Oceania are used by geographers, economists, and oceanographers.
In 1513, Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and encountered the Pacific Ocean, calling it the South Sea. In 1521, a Spanish expedition led by the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan was the first recorded crossing of the Pacific Ocean, Magellan then naming it the "peaceful sea."
Archaeological evidence indicates that humans arrived on New Guinea at least 60,000 years ago, probably by sea from Southeast Asia during an ice age period when the sea was lower and distances between islands shorter. For an overview of the geological history of the continent of which New Guinea is a part, see Australia – New Guinea.
Kon-Tiki expedition. The Kon-Tiki raft at the Kon-Tiki Museum, Oslo. The Kon-Tiki expedition was a 1947 journey by raft across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands, led by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl. The raft was named Kon-Tiki after the Inca god Viracocha, for whom "Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name.
Polynesian navigation. Polynesian navigation or Polynesian wayfinding was used for thousands of years to enable long voyages across thousands of kilometres of the open Pacific Ocean. Polynesians made contact with nearly every island within the vast Polynesian Triangle, using outrigger canoes or double-hulled canoes.
From the early 15th century to the early 17th century the Age of Discovery had, through Portuguese seafarers, and later, Spanish, Dutch, French and English, opened up southern Africa, the Americas (New World), Asia and Oceania to European eyes: Bartholomew Dias had sailed around the Cape of southern Africa in search of a trade route to India; Christopher Columbus, on four journeys across the ...
The Austronesian peoples, who include the people of Micronesia, developed oceangoing sailing technologies to migrate across the Pacific Ocean.. Micronesian navigation techniques are those navigation skills used for thousands of years by the navigators who voyaged between the thousands of small islands in the western Pacific Ocean in the subregion of Oceania, that is commonly known as Micronesia.
Oceania is a geographical, and geopolitical, region consisting of numerous lands—mostly islands in the Pacific Ocean and vicinity. The term is also sometimes used to denote a continent comprising Australia and proximate Pacific islands. [1][2][3][4] The boundaries of Oceania are defined in a number of ways.