The Pacific Voyages of Rollo Beck (original) (raw)

here are many volumes written about the adventures of early European and American explorers "discovering" new and far-off lands, such as the islands of the Pacific. As was often the case, the Western explorers were not discovering the lands they found but merely visiting the island homes of others. It was not Captain Cook but the Polynesians, who found and settled the islands of Oceania.

The first inhabitants of the islands of Oceania, are believed to have origins in South East Asia from where they crossed the Pacific by means of the voyaging canoe. Although people had reached areas of Western Melanesia as early as 30,000-40,000 years ago, the archaeological records indicate that their canoes did not reach the islands of Polynesia, further east, until approximately 3,500 years ago.