Polynesian Voyaging Canoe

Timeline

1. c. 1000–1150Samoan Islands · SamoaIslanders used hardwood for the keel, lashed planks with coconut-fiber rope, and fitted triangular sails and balancing floats to build double-hulled voyaging canoes carrying dozens of people plus grain and livestock; the form was already highly standardized in western Polynesia.
2. c. 1171–1180Polynesian Triangle (west-central) · Polynesian TriangleIn the 1170s regular voyaging continued among Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji; canoe fleets carried taro, breadfruit, stone tools, and people, navigators judging course by star paths, swell forms, and migratory birds, and inter-island political alliances also depended on canoe traffic.
3. c. 1175–1300Society Islands (Tahiti area) · French PolynesiaThe same voyaging canoe technology supported further spread into East Polynesia, with the Society Islands becoming a technical and demographic relay for subsequent migration toward the Marquesas, Hawaii, and New Zealand.