706 migration and population movements: Asia and the Pacific MIGRATION AND COLONIZATION ANCIENT PACIFIC OF THE Turning from the Asian continent to the Pacific Ocean, the occupation of the islands of Hawaii is perhaps the most striking example of the extraordinary achievements of the Polynesian peoples, who are responsible for the colonization of a large number of isolated islands in the central Pacific Over a period of approximately 2,500 years (from ca 1500 b.c.e to ca 1000 c.e.) voyagers from Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa migrated to and colonized islands across an ocean area of millions of square miles By the 16th century, when European navigators began to explore the Pacific, virtually all the habitable islands were already settled These maritime migrations were made in outrigger and double-hulled canoes built with stone, bone, and coral tools By alternately paddling or sailing (using sails woven from coconut or pandanus leaves) Polynesian migrants regularly completed voyages of more than 2,000 miles across the Pacific Navigation was done by skilled mariners using observations based on ocean currents, winds, and the setting points of stars Navigators also employed a system of dead reckoning, memorizing the distance and direction being traveled until the destination was reached When European explorers first arrived in the islands of Polynesia, it was immediately obvious that the Polynesian inhabitants must have shared a common ancestry Island residents were similar in appearance, and their language, technologies, domesticated species, and cultures varied very little across thousands of miles of ocean area It is now believed that all Polynesian peoples came from common an- Among the peoples of ancient Oceania were the Polynesians, who colonized a large number of isolated islands in the central Pacific after 1500 b.c.e