AD 1-1100

The development of a distinctive eastern Polynesian culture appears to have taken place in the Samoa-Tonga region between 1000 BC and AD 1, when the islands were relatively isolated. The population of this region seems to have grown rapidly over the next 1000 years. Around AD 300, settlers, probably from Samoa, established themselves on the Marquesas Islands, bringing with them pigs, chickens, breadfruit, seedlings, coconuts and root crops.

The Marquesas were the point from which the farthest reaches of eastern Polynesia were discovered and settled. From here, voyagers in large canoes with sails managed the journey to distant Easter Island in the far east of the Pacific by 400. The earliest traces of human settlement on Hawaii to the north and the Society Islands to the south have been dated to 600. Finally, seafarers who according to Maori tradition came from a homeland in the Society Islands, reached New Zealand, far to the south, by 750.

In the early phases of settlement, from 300-600, people relied heavily on fishing and marine resources while plant crops and stocks of pigs and chickens were becoming established. From 600 the population began to expand and settle inland areas of islands. Agriculture, including irrigation systems, became more important from around this time.