Oceania consists of the islands of Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea, and the Melanesian, Micronesian and Polynesian island groups of the South Pacific. The first of these islands to be settled were Australia and New Guinea. Aboriginal Australians migrated to Australia from Southeast Asia between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago. Some also settled on New Guinea, which was then connected to Australia by land. The settlement of the other South Pacific islands did not begin until about 5000 years ago. New Zealand remained uninhabited until about 750 years ago.

Aboriginal Australians

The earliest inhabitants of Australia probably reached the continent between about 60,000 and 50,000 years ago. European settlers in the 18th century called the native peoples "Aborigines", meaning “people from the earliest times”. When the colonizers arrived, the Aboriginal Australians lived by hunting and gathering their own food. They had no knowledge of metals so they used long wooden spears, tipped with stone or bone. They always knew where to find water, even in the driest desert. They knew which plants were safe to eat and which could be used to make medicine. But as the Aboriginal Australians were a nomadic people, with few possessions, it was easy for the Europeans to claim ownership of their land.

Aboriginal beliefs

Although the Aboriginal Australian way of life seemed "primitive" to the colonizers, it is based on a complex system of beliefs and traditions. They believe that the world was created by their animal, plant and human ancestors during a period known as Dreamtime.

Aboriginals believe in an everlasting spiritual life known as “Eternal Dreaming”. Their music, poetry, dancing and sculpture are all inspired by their religious beliefs. One musical instrument is a long wooden tube called a didgeridoo. The weather is very important to them. Many of their rituals involve the fertility of the land and the growth of new plants.

Maori

New Zealand was originally settled by Polynesians from Eastern Polynesia around 1250 AD. The descendants of these settlers became known as the Maori. New Zealand was then home to some giant flightless birds, such as the moa, and the Maori hunted them to extinction by about 1500. In the absence of game, the Maori turned to cultivation of sweet potatoes, taro, gourds, yams and cabbage trees, or, where this was not possible in the far south, gathering wild plants. Forced to compete with one another for land and resources, wars between Maori tribes (called iwi), broke out frequently. Family groups, called hapu, built pa (hillforts) to defend themselves and their lands.

Polynesian voyages

There are thousands of tiny islands spread thousands of kilometres apart across the South Pacific Ocean. Apart from New Zealand, most of them are very small. Finding these islands in ancient times involved the risky business of travelling very long distances in canoes. The Polynesians were the first people to inhabit these islands. They constructed large canoes, some big enough to hold 100 people, to explore and settle on them. Probably originating in Taiwan and Southeast Asia, they had reached Tonga by c.1000 BC. By AD 1000, they had gradually explored the other islands in the South Pacific Ocean.
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Easter Island (Rapa Nui in the local Polynesian language) lies 3700 kilometres (2300 miles) off the coast of Chile, in South America. There are nearly 900 massive stone heads, called moai, dotted about on the island, all that is left of a civilization that grew up on the island, created by settlers.

Settlers probably reached Easter Island between AD 700 and 1200. They built long altar platforms on the seashore where religious rituals took place. The heads were not carved till later, between AD 1250 and 1500. They stood on the altars, nearly all of them facing inland, but they were probably not statues of gods. They are more likely to be ancestors of the island’s inhabitants. The statues were carved at the quarries where the stone came from—only the eyes were added once the statues were in position.
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