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Austronesian expansion

maritime expansion · 3000 BC–1280 AD

The farthest-reaching migration before modern times. Seafarers speaking Austronesian languages set out from Taiwan around 3000 BC, settled the islands of Southeast Asia, and crossed the open Pacific in outrigger and double-hulled canoes, reaching Hawaiʻi, Rapa Nui and Aotearoa New Zealand by about 1200–1300. Another branch crossed the Indian Ocean to Madagascar. Dates come from radiocarbon-dated sites and from the family tree of the languages; the Pacific dates were revised much later after re-dating in 2011.

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At a glance

Who moved
Austronesian-speaking seafarers and farmers
Reached
Java, Samoa, Society Islands, Hawaiʻi, Rapa Nui, Aotearoa New Zealand, Northern Madagascar

Recorded boundaries

PeriodControlConfidenceEvidenceNotes
3000 BC–2201 BC—medium confidenceno observation date recordedSetting out from Taiwan. The homeland of the Austronesian languages: nine of their ten primary branches are spoken only on Taiwan.
2200 BC–2001 BC—medium confidenceno observation date recordedReached Northern Luzon (Out of Taiwan). Red-slipped pottery like Taiwan's appears in the Cagayan valley.
2000 BC–1801 BC—low confidenceno observation date recordedReached Visayas (Out of Taiwan).
1800 BC–1501 BC—low confidenceno observation date recordedReached Talaud and northern Sulawesi (Out of Taiwan).
1500 BC–1351 BC—low confidenceno observation date recordedSetting out from Talaud and northern Sulawesi. Reached Sulawesi (Out of Taiwan).
1350 BC–1001 BC—medium confidenceno observation date recordedReached Bismarck Archipelago (The Lapita voyages). Lapita pottery, with its stamped designs, marks the arrival of Austronesian speakers in Near Oceania.
1000 BC–901 BC—low confidenceno observation date recordedReached Java (Out of Taiwan) and Vanuatu (The Lapita voyages). Teouma, the oldest cemetery in Remote Oceania, where no one had lived before.
900 BC–881 BC—medium confidenceno observation date recordedReached Fiji (The Lapita voyages).
880 BC–801 BC—high confidenceno observation date recordedReached Tonga (The Lapita voyages). Nukuleka, dated by coral files to within a decade or so of 888 BC.
800 BC–499 AD—medium confidenceno observation date recordedReached Samoa (The Lapita voyages). Then a pause of nearly two thousand years before anyone sailed further east.
500 AD–699 AD—low confidenceno observation date recordedSetting out from Southeast Borneo. Malagasy is closest to the Ma'anyan language of the Barito river in southeast Borneo.
700 AD–949 AD—low confidenceno observation date recordedReached Northern Madagascar (To Madagascar). When the first Austronesian settlers arrived is argued; most estimates fall between 500 and 800.
950 AD–1024 AD—medium confidenceno observation date recordedSetting out from Samoa.
1025 AD–1149 AD—medium confidenceno observation date recordedReached Society Islands (Into East Polynesia). Re-dating in 2011 put the first settlement of the Society Islands at 1025–1120, centuries later than once thought.
1150 AD–1179 AD—medium confidenceno observation date recordedSetting out from Society Islands.
1180 AD–1199 AD—low confidenceno observation date recordedReached Mangareva (To Rapa Nui).
1200 AD–1219 AD—medium confidenceno observation date recordedSetting out from Society Islands. Reached Rapa Nui (To Rapa Nui). Easter Island, the eastern corner of the Polynesian triangle.
1220 AD–1279 AD—low confidenceno observation date recordedReached Hawaiʻi (To Hawaiʻi) and Rarotonga (To Aotearoa).
1280 AD—medium confidenceno observation date recordedReached Aotearoa New Zealand (To Aotearoa). The last large habitable land on Earth to be settled.

Each row is a snapshot the source recorded, not a continuous history. The period between two observations is an inference this atlas shows rather than hides.

Sources

Elsewhere