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The sweet potato, a food crop native to the Americas, was widespread in Polynesia by the time European explorers first reached the Pacific. Sweet potato has been radiocarbon-dated to 1000 CE in the Cook Islands. Current thinking is that it was brought to central Polynesia c. 700 CE and spread across Polynesia from there. [20]
The Polynesian triangle. Between about 3000 and 1000 BC speakers of Austronesian languages spread through the islands of Southeast Asia – most likely starting out from Taiwan, [9] as tribes whose natives were thought to have previously arrived from mainland South China about 8000 years ago – into the edges of western Micronesia and on into Melanesia, through the Philippines and Indonesia.
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. Direct European contact with the ...
For the following decade, they often sent converted Polynesian missionaries rather than European missionaries. These Polynesians were regarded as a form of cannon fodder; if they survived, it meant Europeans could safely follow. [53] In 1845, Polynesian teachers from Samoa landed on Efate, but most were killed within a few years. [53]
European settlement increased through the early decades of the 19th century, with numerous trading stations established, especially in the North Island. Christianity was introduced to New Zealand in 1814 by Samuel Marsden , who travelled to the Bay of Islands where he founded a mission station on behalf of the Church of England's Church ...
Ancient Tongan mythologies, as recorded by early European explorers, ... French Polynesia became a full overseas collectivity of France in 2004.
The written history began when European navigators first sighted New Guinea in the early part of the 16th century. Portuguese explorers first arrived from the west and later Spanish navigators from the east, after crossing the Pacific. The island was given its name "New Guinea" by Spanish explorer Yñigo Ortiz de Retez who sailed its coast in 1545.
Along with Fiji and Samoa, the area served as a gateway into the rest of the Pacific region known as Polynesia. [2] Ancient Tongan mythologies recorded by early European explorers report the islands of 'Ata and Tongatapu as the first islands having been hauled to the surface from the deep ocean by Maui. [3] [4]