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Discover what happened on Easter Island/ Rapa Nui by exploring below:
SEARCH terms: "polynesia", "easter island", "polynesian culture", "history of navigation".
| 2000 -1500 BC | First travellers begin to move from Asia through the islands, moving east towards what becomes the Polynesian Triangle. Tonga is settled. | |
| 1000 BC | Samoa is settled. | |
| 500 BC |
Polynesians move further east and settle the islands of Hawaii and Rapa Nui (Easter Island). The Rapa Nui people make huge stone statues called moai.
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| 950 AD | Maori myth suggests Chief Kupe sails to New Zealand and names it 'Aotearoa'. | |
| 1000 AD |
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| 1100 AD | Maori myth suggests the Polynesian explorers Toi and Whatonga arrive in Aotearoa (New Zealand). | |
| 1350 AD | According the myth, the 'Great Fleet' arrives and Maori people begin to settle in Aotearoa. | |
| 1400 AD |
Most species of the moa, a flightless bird of New Zealand are extinct after being hunted as a source of food.
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| 1500 AD | Food begins to run out on Rapa Nui. Fighting starts. The last moai is erected. A new religion begins, called the Birdman cult. | |
| 1600 AD | As resources run out on Rapa Nui, there is warring between clans and the people practice cannibalism. | |
| 1642 AD | The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman claims Aotearoa, or New Zealand, for Holland | |
| 1722 AD | First European contact with the Rapa Nui people. Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen names Rapa Nui 'Easter Island'. | |
| 1744 AD | The British explorer James Cook visits Rapa Nui. | |
| 1769 AD | Cook claims New Zealand for Great Britain. |
From: "The Polynesian Expansion across the Pacific" Chapter 16
(Oxford Big Ideas Humanities 8)
