The Lapita strike out east
Into the open Pacific, with pig, chicken and taro aboard
See it on the timeline →In depth
The Lapita expansion covered some 4,000 kilometres in a few centuries, from the Bismarck Archipelago to Tonga and Samoa. It is identified by a distinctive dentate-stamped pottery, and confirmed genetically and linguistically. What mattered was not only navigation but the transported ecology: a portable package of domesticated plants and animals that made it possible to settle islands with thin ecosystems. It is among the fastest settlement waves in human history, and the precondition for the later Polynesian voyages.
For children
From New Guinea, people sailed east to islands no one had seen. They carried everything needed to start again: pigs, chickens, dogs, taro and yams. We recognise them by their pottery, stamped with fine dentate patterns.
Connects to
Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org