Polynesia (2637 – 910 BCE): Lapita Horizons, Voyaging Science, and the Unreached North

Regional Overview

Across the open Pacific, Polynesia lay poised for its first true colonization.
While the great civilizations of Eurasia turned to bronze, iron, and empire, this oceanic world entered an age of exploration defined not by metals but by canoes, stars, and memory.
Between the mid-third and early first millennium BCE, Austronesian voyagers—descendants of Lapita pioneers—pushed eastward from the Bismarck and Fijian arcs, testing routes that would one day span a third of the globe.
The southern frontier, in Tonga and Samoa, saw permanent settlement by about 900 BCE.
Farther east and north, the Societies, Marquesas, Hawaiʻi, and Rapa Nui remained pristine: mapped in mind, not yet in habitation.

Geography and Environmental Context

The Polynesian triangle—bounded by future Hawaiʻi, New Zealand, and Rapa Nui—was still largely empty of people.
To the south and west, Lapita societies thrived along the Fiji–Tonga–Samoa axis, a zone of fertile volcanic soils, reef-sheltered coasts, and abundant breadfruit and taro.
Northward stretched the high, forested islands of the Hawaiian chain and the remote atoll of Midway; eastward, the volcanic peaks of the Societies and Marquesas, the coral ridges of the Cooks, and the lonely cones of Rapa Nui and Pitcairn awaited discovery.
Across these immense distances, the Pacific’s trade winds, countercurrents, and celestial regularities provided the framework for navigation.

Climate and Environmental Shifts

Holocene stability reigned.
Regular trade-wind seasons, interspersed with localized droughts and Kona-type storms, defined the pattern familiar through later millennia.
Sea levels had stabilized close to modern elevations, lagoons and atolls matured ecologically, and coral reef systems reached their pre-human equilibrium—a pristine baseline soon to host the transported landscapes of Polynesian horticulture.

Societies, Settlement, and Expansion

By the early first millennium BCE, Lapita communities from Near Oceania had developed into full maritime chiefdoms.
They founded Tonga and Samoa, bringing with them domesticated animals, tubers, tree crops, and an integrated horticultural–fishing economy.
Their settlements, organized around coastal hamlets and beach-ridge cemeteries, formed the first enduring societies in what would become Polynesia proper.
These colonists combined intricate kinship systems with lineage-based authority expressed through exchange and feasting.
Beyond them, the high islands and atolls of central and northern Polynesia remained unvisited—the last great frontier of the human voyage.

Economy and Technology

Lapita subsistence depended on mixed horticulture, arboriculture, and reef harvesting.
Stone and shell adzes, barkcloth looms, and obsidian tools underpinned daily life.
Pottery—characterized by its distinctive dentate-stamped designs—served as both utilitarian ware and a marker of cultural identity.
The real technological revolution, however, lay in seamanship: the refinement of the double-hulled canoe, the balanced crab-claw sail, and the astronomical navigation system that made deliberate ocean crossings routine.
These innovations transformed the Pacific from a barrier into a continent of water.

Movement and Interaction Corridors

A dense voyaging corridor linked Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa, forming the nucleus of the later Polynesian exchange sphere.
Exploratory probes reached eastward toward the Cook and Society Islands and northward into uncharted waters, where Hawaiʻi’s volcanic silhouettes awaited future landfall.
Each expedition tested wind patterns, star paths, and ocean swells, gradually extending the mental map of the ocean.
The Lapita maritime network thus became the laboratory from which Polynesian wayfinding emerged.

Belief and Symbolism

Lapita iconography—incised faces, spirals, and concentric motifs—encoded ancestral and cosmological themes, linking the sea, lineage, and creation.
Sacred beach terraces, aligned to the horizon, may represent early forms of marae or ahu, foreshadowing the ritual architecture of later Polynesia.
Voyaging itself was a sacred act: canoes were consecrated, navigators initiated, and landfalls interpreted as fulfillments of ancestral design.

Environmental Adaptation and Resilience

Colonists transported a complete biocultural package—taro, yam, breadfruit, coconut, pig, dog, chicken, and the social institutions to manage them.
They sited villages in leeward zones sheltered from cyclones, practiced intercropping for soil stability, and established portable ecosystems that could regenerate on any new island.
In yet-unsettled regions, natural ecosystems continued undisturbed, providing the environmental blank slate that later settlers would transform into productive landscapes.

Regional Synthesis and Long-Term Significance

By 910 BCE, Tonga and Samoa stood as the Lapita world’s eastern bastions, while the vast remainder of Polynesia remained silent and untouched.
Yet every element of the later Polynesian achievement was already in place—the technology, cosmology, and navigational genius that would soon knit the central and northern Pacific into a single cultural sphere.
This epoch thus represents Polynesia in potential: a constellation of islands awaiting connection, its human story poised at the threshold of discovery.

Merchants from Tyre may have established an outpost at Cádiz, "the walled enclosure," as early as 1100 BCE as the westernmost link in what will become a chain of settlements lining the peninsula's southern coast.

If the accepted date of its founding is accurate, Cádiz is the oldest city in Western Europe, and it is even older than Carthage in North Africa.

It is the most significant of the Phoenician colonies.

From Cadiz, Phoenician seamen will explore the west coast of Africa as far as Senegal, and they will reputedly venture far out on the Atlantic.

West Antarctica (2637 – 910 BCE): Fragmented Ice Lands and Coastal Wildlife Havens

Geographic and Environmental Context

West Antarctica—including the Antarctic Peninsula, the Amundsen Sea and Bellingshausen Sea sectors, the scattered coastal ice shelves of Marie Byrd Land, and Peter I Island—was geologically distinct from East Antarctica. Instead of a single massive plateau, it consisted of smaller, lower-elevation ice domes separated by deep marine basins. Much of its bedrock lay below sea level, making it vulnerable to ice retreat during warmer intervals.
Peter I Island, a small volcanic landmass in the Bellingshausen Sea about 450 km off the Antarctic coast, rose from the Southern Ocean as an ice-clad, sheer-sided fortress of rock and glacier. Like the Antarctic Peninsula, it represented one of the few places in West Antarctica where rocky terrain broke through the ice sheet.

Climate and Environmental Conditions

The Antarctic Peninsula had the mildest climate on the mainland, with summer temperatures occasionally reaching above freezing in sheltered coastal sites. The surrounding seas experienced seasonal sea ice retreat, creating biologically rich ice edges and open-water areas (polynyas). Farther south, the Amundsen and Bellingshausen coasts remained locked in heavier pack ice for much of the year.
Peter I Island, isolated and surrounded by pack ice, endured similar conditions to the Bellingshausen coast—persistent cold, high winds, and short summer thaws exposing limited ice-free ground.

Biological Productivity

Although inhospitable to terrestrial vegetation beyond mosses and lichens, the West Antarctic coasts and nearby islands supported intense summer bursts of life:

• Penguins – Adélie and gentoo colonies nested on ice-free slopes of the Antarctic Peninsula and surrounding islands.

• Seals – Weddell, crabeater, and leopard seals hauled out on sea ice and beaches.

• Seabirds – Petrels, skuas, and sheathbills foraged widely, with some nesting on rocky headlands.
  Peter I Island, though small, provided seasonal rookeries for seabirds and occasional haul-out spots for seals.

Human Presence

During 2637 – 910 BCE, West Antarctica, including Peter I Island, was completely beyond human reach. The region’s remoteness from inhabited lands, the barrier of the Drake Passage, and the formidable pack ice made access impossible for the maritime technology of the time. Even the closest human populations in southern South America and the subantarctic islands could not approach or survive in these polar conditions.

Symbolic and Conceptual Absence

These lands lay outside the mental maps of all ancient peoples, existing only as an unseen and unimagined realm. If the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula was ever glimpsed from distant southern waters, it would have appeared as a remote, cloud-shrouded mountain range with no obvious signs of life or landfall.

Environmental Adaptation of Local Life

Wildlife here was adapted to the extreme cold and seasonal food booms: penguins bred during the short summer to raise chicks before the onset of winter darkness, seals synchronized pupping with peak prey availability, and seabirds timed migrations to match the productivity of Antarctic waters.

Transition to the Early First Millennium BCE

By 910 BCE, West Antarctica remained a frozen and isolated domain, unvisited by humans but vital to marine ecosystems. Its scattered rocky outcrops—like Peter I Island—and productive summer coastlines were important ecological nodes in the Southern Ocean, long before human exploration reached these latitudes.

East Polynesia (2637 – 910 BCE): The Remote Eastern Apex

Geographic and Environmental Context

East Polynesia—including Easter Island (Rapa Nui) and the Pitcairn Islands—formed the far southeastern point of the Polynesian Triangle. Both were volcanic in origin, with Rapa Nui characterized by rolling volcanic hills, freshwater crater lakes, and arable soils, while the Pitcairn Islands presented rugged coastlines, forested slopes, and limited lowland plains. The surrounding South Pacific waters were warm but relatively nutrient-poor, with marine life concentrated in reef and nearshore environments.

Subsistence and Settlement

There is no evidence of permanent human settlement in East Polynesia during this epoch. However, the islands’ resources made them potentially valuable to exploratory voyagers:

• Rapa Nui had fertile soils and enclosed freshwater sources in volcanic craters.

• Pitcairn had forest resources, nesting seabirds, and freshwater springs.
  Any landfall during this period would likely have been short-term, focused on fishing, gathering seabirds and eggs, and collecting fresh water before departing.

Technological and Navigational Context

Reaching East Polynesia from West or Central Polynesia required some of the longest open-ocean voyages in prehistory, often over 2,000 km with no intermediate landfalls. Voyaging demanded double-hulled canoes capable of carrying ample provisions, navigators skilled in star compasses, ocean swell interpretation, and avian flight tracking, and coordinated crew expertise for prolonged sea passages.

Environmental Characteristics and Resource Use

• Rapa Nui: Volcanic soils capable of supporting root crops like taro and yam; freshwater in crater lakes; rocky coasts for fishing and shellfish gathering.

• Pitcairn Islands: Forest cover for timber; limited arable land; rich seabird rookeries and inshore fisheries.
  Both locations lacked land mammals but offered abundant marine and avian protein.

Cultural and Symbolic Role

Even if not visited, these islands may have existed in the conceptual horizon of Polynesian navigators as the ultimate eastern limit—places of challenge, achievement, and perhaps spiritual significance in oral tradition. In later centuries, such distant lands often featured in migration stories and cosmological maps.

Environmental Adaptation and Resilience

Exploratory crews would have needed to maximize fresh water collection, preserve fish and other foods, and time voyages to seasonal wind shifts for safe return. The capacity to survive and navigate in such remote seas reflects the apex of Polynesian wayfinding skill.

Transition to the Early First Millennium BCE

By 910 BCE, East Polynesia remained beyond the frontier of regular Polynesian voyaging, awaiting the later period of long-range expansion. Its eventual settlement would mark one of the greatest achievements in human navigation, completing the settlement of the world’s largest oceanic expanse.

West Polynesia (909 BCE – 819 CE): Post-Lapita Transformations — Tonga–Samoa Chiefdom Seeds, Outlier Visits Elsewhere

Geographic & Environmental Context

West Polynesia includes Hawaiʻi Island (the Big Island); Tonga (Tongatapu, Haʻapai, Vavaʻu); Samoa (Savaiʻi, Upolu, Tutuila/Manuʻa); Tuvalu and Tokelau (low atolls); the Cook Islands (Rarotonga, Aitutaki, Mangaia, etc.); Society Islands (Raiatea–Tahiti–Moʻorea–Bora Bora); and the Marquesas (Nuku Hiva, Hiva Oa)

• Anchors (settled cores): Tongatapu–Haʻapai–Vavaʻu, Savaiʻi–Upolu.

• Unsettled or only transiently visited: Hawaiʻi Island, Society Islands, Marquesas, much of the Cook Islands, Tuvalu–Tokelau (some atolls may see late first-millennium CE initial landfalls beyond this cutoff).

Climate & Environmental Shifts

• First-millennium oscillations moderate; cultivation and arboriculture consolidate on leeward plains; reef fisheries stable.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Post-Lapita societies in Tonga–Samoa: villages aggregate; irrigated taro and dryland field systems expand; breadfruit/coconut groves mature.

• Fish weirs and nearshore net fisheries standardized; pig/chicken husbandry routine.

Technology & Material Culture

• Local ceramic traditions simplify as tapa and woodwork ascend; shell/stone adzes refined; canoe sail/rig innovations tuned to prevailing trades.

• Ornamental whale tooth, pearlshell, and feather regalia appear.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Robust Fiji–Tonga–Samoa exchange; long-haul probes to Cooks–Societies–Marquesas likely increase late in this epoch (but enduring settlements there generally post-date 819 CE); Hawaiʻi Island remains uncolonized.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Emergent sacred precincts (marae/ahu) formalize chiefly ritual; lineage genealogies anchor land–sea tenure.

• Foundational navigation lore (star paths, swell reading, seabird cues) transmitted in guilds—precondition for the later settlement wave across Cooks–Societies–Marquesas–Hawaiʻi.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Agroforestry mosaics (breadfruit–canoe timber–taro ponds) and storm-siting strategies buffer cyclones and drought; marine closures support reef resilience.

Transition

By 819 CE, Tonga–Samoa sustain thriving post-Lapita chiefdom seeds; the wider West Polynesian sphere (including Societies, Marquesas, Cooks, Hawaiʻi Island) remains largely unsettled within this epoch—but navigational capacity and cultural templates are in place for the first-millennium CE → early second-millennium colonization pulse documented in our later-age entries.

Antarctica (909 BCE – 819 CE): Polar Plateaus, Icebound Mountains, and Oceanic Exchange

Regional Overview

During the first millennium BCE through the early first millennium CE, Antarctica remained a world apart—an immense, uninhabited ice continent influencing global climate but invisible to human experience.
Its glacial mass, atmospheric circulation, and surrounding seas shaped the rhythms of the Southern Hemisphere.
While civilizations across Afro-Eurasia mastered iron and empire, Antarctica’s silence was anything but static: the ice sheets advanced and withdrew in slow pulses, driving oceanic productivity and long-range climatic feedbacks that reached far beyond the polar horizon.

Geography and Environment

The Antarctic realm comprises two great continental divisions:

• West Antarctica, a patchwork of mountain ranges, volcanic plateaus, and broad ice shelves stretching from the Antarctic Peninsula to Marie Byrd Land.

• East Antarctica, the vast polar plateau rising more than 3 km above sea level, capped by the thickest ice on Earth.

Between them lies the Transantarctic Mountains, dividing basins that feed the Ross and Ronne–Filchner Ice Shelves.
Coastal oases—dry valleys, nunataks, and basalt ridges—supported microbial mats, lichens, and mosses, while the Southern Ocean teemed with life beneath a canopy of shifting ice.

Climate and Environmental Shifts

The epoch fell within the late Holocene climatic envelope, cooler than mid-Holocene warmth yet far from glacial extremes.
Seasonal oscillations in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) and polar vortex regulated sea-ice extent: winter expansion sealed the continent in darkness; summer retreats opened productive polynyas and continental-shelf habitats.
Ice cores later reveal slight shifts in snowfall and atmospheric composition—early signals of the interlinked hemispheric climate system already in operation.

Ecology and Life Systems

Antarctica’s continental interior supported only extremophile micro-ecosystems—bacteria, algae, and lichens adapted to freeze-thaw cycles and desiccation.
The surrounding Southern Ocean, by contrast, pulsed with abundance:

• Krill blooms under melting sea ice sustained penguins, seals, and whales.

• Adélie and gentoo penguins nested on ice-free rock ledges along the Antarctic Peninsula and South Shetland Islands.

• Seals (Weddell, leopard, crabeater) bred on seasonal ice.

• Seabirds—petrels, skuas, albatrosses—connected Antarctica to the sub-Antarctic island arcs.

This closed yet dynamic biosphere functioned as a planetary nutrient engine, cycling carbon and sustaining global marine food webs.

Movement and Interaction Corridors

The Southern Ocean was Antarctica’s true frontier.
The ACC circled the continent uninterrupted, coupling the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific basins.
Migrating whales, seals, and seabirds traversed these currents each austral summer, linking polar feeding grounds with subtropical calving or nesting zones.
Glacial melt streams and katabatic winds influenced sea-ice formation, subtly modulating global ocean circulation long before any human measurement could record it.

Cultural and Symbolic Dimensions

No people reached Antarctica in this age.
Yet the idea of a southern land—the terra australis incognita of later classical geography—may have originated in ancient attempts to balance the world map, an intuitive recognition that Earth’s symmetry required a polar counterweight.
In this sense, even without witnesses, the continent occupied a mythic position in the emerging human imagination: an unseen pole anchoring the planet’s equilibrium.

Adaptation and Resilience

Life persisted through ecological specialization.
Marine species synchronized breeding with sea-ice cycles; penguins adjusted colony sites to glacial advance or retreat.
Microbial communities entered dormancy during deep freezes and revived with meltwater pulses.
The ice sheet itself acted as both barrier and buffer, recording atmospheric history in its layers while regulating Earth’s albedo and sea level.

Regional Synthesis and Long-Term Significance

By 819 CE, Antarctica remained an untouched continent—its glaciers untrammeled, its ecosystems self-regulated, its climatic influence planetary.
Together with the sub-Antarctic arcs of the Southern Indian and South Atlantic Oceans, it completed the Southern Ocean system that governed global circulation.
In its silence and endurance lay the prehuman foundation of the Earth’s climate engine: a frozen mirror reflecting the sky, a realm of continuity beneath iron-age stars.

North Africa (621–478 BCE)

Carthaginian Dominance, Cyrene’s Prosperity, and Cultural Integration

Carthage’s Strategic Expansion and Maritime Dominance

Between 621 and 478 BCE, Carthage significantly expands its maritime and commercial dominance across the Western Mediterranean. Its powerful navy, fortified colonies, and extensive mercenary forces—including notable Greek contingents—secure strategic territories in western Sicily, Sardinia, the Balearic Islands, and along the coast from Cyrene to the Straits of Gibraltar. Carthage's trade networks thrive, underpinning its political and economic strength throughout this period.

Under the influential Magonid dynasty, Carthage enhances its regional position, notably through ambitious expeditions such as that led by Hanno the Navigator around 500–480 BCE, colonizing and exploring the northwestern African coast. Hanno’s voyage significantly expands Carthaginian territory, establishing new settlements and reinforcing existing ones, such as the important dye-manufacturing center at Mogador. Carthage also founds notable towns along the Algerian coast, including Hippo Regius (modern Annaba) and Rusicade (modern Skikda).

Diplomatic Maneuvering and Rivalries in Sicily

Carthage maintains active diplomatic engagements, notably concluding significant treaties, including a notable agreement with the Roman Republic in 509 BCE, delineating spheres of influence and trade interests. Concurrently, Carthage faces continuous military challenges from Greek city-states, notably in Sicily. Repeated conflicts, including battles against notable opponents like Gelo, ruler of Syracuse, underscore the intense competition and persistent Greek resistance, ultimately redirecting Carthaginian focus toward consolidating influence across North Africa.

Potential diplomatic strategies even include tentative alliances with major powers such as the Persian king Xerxes, although historical accounts remain uncertain. Despite significant confrontations, Carthage maintains regional dominance, effectively defending its strategic and economic interests.

Cyrene’s Sustained Economic and Cultural Flourishing

Throughout this period, Cyrene experiences sustained prosperity, driven by significant agricultural exports, particularly grain, fruit, horses, and notably the prized medicinal plant Silphium. Economic wealth fuels extensive civic construction, notably temples and public buildings, reinforcing Cyrene's prominent regional status.

Four additional Greek cities are established along the Libyan coast region within two centuries of Cyrene's founding: Barce (Al Marj), Euhesperides (later Berenice, present-day Benghazi), Teuchira (later Arsinoe, present-day Tukrah), and Apollonia (Susah), the port city of Cyrene. Together with Cyrene, they form the Pentapolis (Five Cities). Although frequently competitive and finding cooperation challenging even against common foes, these cities resist encroachments from Egypt to the east and Carthage to the west. However, in 525 BCE, Cyrenaica briefly falls under the control of Cambyses, son of Cyrus the Great of Persia, marking two centuries of alternating Persian and Egyptian dominance.

Berber Integration and Cultural Continuity

Coastal Berber communities deepen their integration with Carthaginian trade, adopting advanced agricultural methods, maritime techniques, and artisanal crafts introduced by Phoenician settlers. The Phoenicians establish the city of Oea (present-day Tripoli), likely built upon an existing native town due to its strategic natural harbor. Although initially controlled by Greek rulers of Cyrenaica, Carthage later seizes control of Oea. This integration significantly enhances economic prosperity and regional stability while preserving Berber cultural identities.

Inland Berber societies, largely autonomous and isolated from coastal political dynamics, sustain traditional tribal structures and indirectly benefit from increased regional trade, maintaining economic stability and cultural distinctiveness.

Cultural Exchange and Syncretic Development

Interactions among Berber, Carthaginian, and Greek communities continue to flourish, creating a rich cultural tapestry reflected in hybrid artistic, artisanal, and religious practices. The ongoing syncretism integrates indigenous Berber spiritual traditions with Phoenician and Greek religious elements, fostering regional cultural complexity and vibrancy.

Enduring Foundations for Regional Influence

By 478 BCE, North Africa is characterized by enduring economic prosperity and political stability, anchored by Carthage’s maritime dominance, Cyrene’s continued prosperity, and cohesive Berber economic integration. Diplomatic and military strategies effectively manage regional tensions, laying strong foundations for continued geopolitical influence and cultural flourishing within the broader Mediterranean context.

Egypt’s Pharaoh Necho II had abandoned Asia after 601 BCE, strengthening the Egyptian navy for strategic and trading purposes and maintaining close links with the Greeks.

According to Herodotus (4.42), Necho engages a crew of Phoenician mariners to undertake the first known circumnavigation of Africa.

The expedition departs Egypt by way of the Red Sea and travels south past Ethiopia, reportedly expecting to turn west shortly after that point, as conventional theory has the continent as roughly rectangular in shape.

Finding that it is not, the sailors journey for three years, during which the sailors, each autumn, establish long-term encampments to sow, grow, and harvest grain that they carry with them.

They finally enter the Pillars of Hercules and sail through the Mediterranean to reappear in Egypt.

Some current historians tend to believe Herodotus' account, primarily because he stated with disbelief that the Phoenicians "as they sailed on a westerly course round the southern end of Libya (Africa), they had the sun on their right—to northward of them" (The Histories 4.42)—in Herodotus' time it was not known that Africa extended south past the equator; however, Egyptologists also point out that it would have been extremely unusual for an Egyptian Pharaoh to carry out such an expedition.

Necho II dies in 595 BCE and is succeeded by his son, Psamtik II, as the next pharaoh of Egypt.

Psamtik II, however, will later remove Necho's name from almost all of his father's monuments for unknown reasons.

Psamtik II  is succeeded in 589 BCE by Apries, his son by Queen Takhut, a Princess of Athribis.

Th royal couple were also the parents of Menekhubaste, a Priestess of Atum at Heliopolis, and Ankhnesneferibre, a God's Wife of Amun who is to be served in this powerful office in Upper Egypt through to the remainder of the Saite period.

Apries is the name by which Herodotus (ii. 161) and Diodorus (i. 68) designate Wahibrea, pharaoh of Egypt (589 BC-570 BCE), the fourth king (counting from Psammetichus I) of the Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt.

Apries continues his father’s poor military record.

Unsuccessful attempts to intervene in the kingdom of Judah are followed by a mutiny of soldiers at Aswan.

The Carthaginian expedition commanded by Hanno the Navigator may have reached Cameroon or Gabon.

Donald Harden notes the description of Mount Cameroon, a four thousand and ninety-five-meter (thirteen thousand four hundred and thirty-five foot) volcano, more closely matches Hanno's description than Guinea's eight hundred and ninety meter (two thousand nine hundred and twenty feet) Mount Kakulima.

Brian Warmington prefers Mount Kakulima, considering Mount Cameroon too distant.

At the terminus of Hanno's voyage, the explorer finds an island heavily populated with what are described as hirsute and savage people.

Attempts to capture the males fail, but three of the females are taken.

These are so ferocious that they are killed, and their skins preserved for transport home to Carthage.

The interpreters call them gorillae, and when European explorers first encounter gorillas in the nineteenth century, the apes are given this name on the assumption that they were the "people" Hanno described, though it is unknown whether what these ancient Carthaginians encountered were truly gorillas, another species of ape or monkeys, or humans.

Hanno the navigator, encountering various indigenous peoples on his journey and meeting with a variety of welcomes, could have reached Gambia.

However, ...