In the account of human exploration , the village of East Polynesia rank among the most remarkable achievements . While Western Polynesia , settled almost 3,000 years ago , is comparatively approachable from Asia , the island of the easterly Pacific are far more remote . Finding them in the small trade uncommitted to the Polynesians at the time , without compasses or sextant , was almost like going to the Moon . grounds from the island of Atiu reveals some of these voyages were earlier than previously suspected , and provides a hard hint of what drove them .
Atiu is in what is now call the Cook Islands although thename is changing . The first colonist are thought to have come up from Tonga or Samoa across around 1,000 kilometers ( 600 air mile ) of open ocean . Even this astonishing voyage was just the first step of the even more remarkable journey toRapa Nui(Easter Island ) .
The timing of the first arrivals has been in doubt , butProfessor David Searof the University of Southampton has analyzed substance sample collect from mud in a lake on Atiu . For most of the 6,000 years of mud sampled , there were no preindication of mammals ( the island fruitbats apparently leaving no mark ) , but around 900 CE Sear detected a upsurge in mammalian feces . He attributes this to sojourn by humankind and their pig , 100 - 200 years before most former estimates , but Sear think the island was initially used as a waystation , not a permanent place .
Within a century , other signs of human natural process emerged as forest was burnt to make quad for crop . Sear also found a fusillade of microcharcoals around 1,400 days ago , which could signal a abbreviated settlement , or burning further afield .
InProceedings of the National Academy of SciencesSear and cobalt - authors compare Atiu ’s sediments with cores collect from Samoa and Vanuata . They find the arrival at Atiu coincided with the driest menses in the last 2,000 years in the island of origin , as rainbands shifted northwards .
The generator conclude the temporarily teetotal islands could no longer brook as many people , create an incentive to find newfangled locations . Meanwhile , the accompanying wind shift made eastward sailing prosperous . Once the rain systems returned to their usual state , island populations boomed and settlement prosper throughout the easterly Pacific .
" Today , commute mood is again place pressure on Pacific island community , only this time the option to migrate is not so simple , ” Sear said in astatement . Cook Islanders are citizens of New Zealand , so if their island become uninhabitable through rising sea levels they have somewhere to go . However , most of the population of Polynesia lack such an escape route , unless the nations whose actions are destroying the island hoi polloi ’s homes choose to open up their doors .
