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The positions of the stars helped guide Polynesian voyages. Stars, as opposed to planets, hold fixed celestial positions year-round, changing only their rising time with the seasons. Each star has a specific declination, and can give a bearing for navigation as it rises or sets. Polynesian voyagers would set a heading by a star near the horizon ...
They proposed that an initial admixture event between indigenous South Americans and Polynesians occurred in eastern Polynesia between 1150 and 1230 CE, with later admixture in Easter Island around 1380 CE, [6] but suggested other possible contact scenarios—for example, Polynesian voyages to South America followed by Polynesian people's ...
[55] [56] Inviting fellow Polynesians to join the crew on legs of the voyage extended Hōkūleʻa's success in revitalizing interest in Polynesian culture. For instance, professional Tongan sea captain Sione Taupeamuhu was aboard during a night passage from Tongatapu to Nomuka in the northerly Haʻapai Islands group of Tonga ( map ).
[3] [4] [5] Although there is putative evidence of Polynesian contact with South America, it's more likely for Polynesians (who were already long-distance voyagers) to have been the ones to reach South America than the other way around. [6] Thor Heyerdahl's book about his experience became a bestseller.
Within the next few centuries Polynesians reached Hawaii, New Zealand, Easter Island and possibly South America. Polynesian navigators used a range of tools and methods, including observation of birds, star navigation, and use of waves and swells to detect nearby land. Songs, mythological stories, and star charts were used to help people ...
The mainstream view of the Polynesian settlement of New Zealand and the Chatham Islands as representing the end-point of a long chain of island-hopping voyages in the South Pacific. Since the early 1900s it has been accepted by archaeologists and anthropologists that Polynesians (who became the Māori ) were the first ethnic group to settle in ...
Early Polynesian explorers reached nearly all Pacific islands by 1200 CE, followed by Asian navigation in Southeast Asia and the West Pacific.During the Middle Ages, Muslim traders linked the Middle East and East Africa to the Asian Pacific coasts, reaching southern China and much of the Malay Archipelago.
Before his death in 1779, Cook hypothesized that Polynesians shared common ancestry; he even pinned their origin to Asia. However, Cook's theory did not prevent debate among scholars. Before the Hōkūleʻa voyage in 1976, academic debate about the settlement of Polynesia was divided between several schools of thought. [54]