Oceania: Peopling

The peopling of Oceania was a long-term process over several millennia. The archaeological evidence reveals how people explored and inhabited this broad and diverse region, generally migrating from the west to the east. A large part of this narrative has involved the diaspora of the Austronesian-speaking communities, moving from Taiwan into Island Southeast Asia and then farther into Pacific Oceania, in a series of steps of ever-growing inhabitation of a grand sea of islands.