maritime expansion

The Mystery of the First Pacific Explorers: Investigating the “Lost Routes” of the Lapita PeopleIntroduction Who were the first sailors to thread the vast blue highway of the Pacific? Imagine voyagers steering outrigger canoes across thousands of kilometers of open ocean, guided by stars, birds, waves and memory, carving pathways that would shape the settlement of half the planet. At the heart of that story are the Lapita people—an archaeological and cultural signal of a…