600-Year-Old Canoe Reveals Story of Polynesian Seafarers

A canoe that had been lost for the last 600 years has recently been found in New Zealand, and is revealing an interesting story about ancient Polynesian seafarers, according to new research.

Polynesian sailors were the first known humans to colonize land, sailing to New Zealand as long ago as 1200 CE (Common Era). However, until this recent discovery, no one knew how the Polynesians were able to sail such long distances in simple wooden canoes.

Sophisticated oceangoing canoes and favorable winds, two studies found, may have helped early human settlers colonize such far away land. The vessel, described in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is one of just two canoes dating back to such an early time period. A second paper in the same journal finds that shifting ancient wind patterns may have created ideal windows of opportunity for early Polynesians.

The preserved canoe remains, dated back to the year 1400, were discovered in 2012 on New Zealand's South Island near the Anaweka estuary, pulled from a sand dune some time after a major storm.

"It kind of took my breath away, really, because it was so carefully constructed and so big," Dilys Johns, a senior research fellow at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, told Live Science.

The boat - likely about 20 meters (about 65 feet) long when it was fully intact - was surprisingly more sophisticated than the canoes described centuries later by the first Europeans to arrive in New Zealand, according to Johns. It appears to be crafted using ancestral plank technology mixed with new resources found on New Zealand such as black pine.

Scientists set out to understand the kinds of boats and sailing technology that would have allowed seafaring Polynesians to brave the waters and winds. Using data from samples of tree rings, sediments and stalagmites, the research team behind the discovery was able to create a simulation of what conditions in Polynesia would have been like from about 800 to 1600.

They found that, for decades at a time, winds shifted to allow for easier access to places that previously would have been quite hard to reach from Polynesia by canoe. The change in wind patterns stopped after 1300, thereafter making ocean travel more difficult. However, since the canoe discovered was dated to 1400, it is not clear whether or not the Polynesians were hindered by the wind patterns.

"We're going to have to discuss, clearly. We think Polynesians were really good sailors ... we think they were able to sail down here with or without help," Johns told the Los Angeles Times.