Centuries before Captain James Cook explored the South Pacific, - TopicsExpress

Centuries before Captain James Cook explored the South Pacific, Polynesian seafarers in canoes crossed vast swaths of water to colonize lonely islands from Samoa and New Zealand all the way to Hawaii. But how they managed such a feat remains something of a mystery. Now, a roughly 600-year-old canoe discovered in New Zealand may shed some light on the Polynesians’ sailing technology. The vessel, described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is one of just two canoes dating back to such an early time period. A second paper in the same journal finds that shifting ancient wind patterns may have created ideal windows of opportunity for certain generations of sailing Polynesians. The preserved canoe remains were discovered in 2012 on New Zealand’s South Island near the Anaweka estuary, pulled from a sand dune some time after a major storm. The 19.95-foot-long section of hull is part of what the authors call a “complex and robust composite canoe, carved from a single timber.”