Britannica
Sources used in this answer
- Pacific Islands - Origins of Oceanian peoples
- Melanesian culture - Traditional Melanesia
- Austronesian languages - Size and geographic scope
- Austronesian languages - Prehistoric inferences from subgrouping
- Austronesian languages
- Stone Age - Oceania
- Pacific Islands - The 16th and 17th centuries
- Papua New Guinea - The colonial period
When did Austronesian speakers move around New Guinea into the western Pacific?
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Austronesian languages
Major divisions of the Austronesian languages.
Austronesian speakers moved around the northern coast of New Guinea into the western Pacific approximately 2000 BCE.1
These populations, associated with the Lapita culture, arrived by sea from Southeast Asia. By 3500 years ago, they had established themselves in parts of the Bismarck Archipelago, and from that region, they fanned out rapidly across the Pacific using sophisticated maritime technology.21