The Islands of Polynesia are among the last regions of the world to be inahibited by man and "To be discovered" by Europeans.

The settlement of its people is an incredible maritime adventure. The Polynesians seem to have arrived from Asia,pushed by winds and ocean currents from the East. It is reconized today that the Polynesians left from Southeast Asia. Several elements such as the language or the plants, wich come from Southeast Asia and New Guinea, reinforces this thesis.

Population from Southeast Asia settled, 40 000 years ago, in New Guinea and the Bismark Archipelago, 30 000 years ago. Then, from 4 000 BC to 1 300 BC, these populations started their great maritime journey by colonizing Eastern Solomon Islands.

Around 200 - 300 BC, they left the Solomon Islands to go towards Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Marshall and Kiribati. Then it was the turn of Samoa, Fiji and Tonga. It is from these islands that the Cook Islands, Tuamotu, Australs, Gambier, Society Islands and the Marquesas were colonized.

From 300 BC to 1 000 years CE. There were the great maritime conquests and birth of the Polynesian triangle with at its extremities the Hawaiian Islands, New Zealand (Aotearoa) and the Easter Islands (Rapa Nui). This maritime adventure is one of the major episodes of the maritime history of humanity. What makes this expedition so extraordinary is that the art of navigation was done without instrument. They used the stars for compass. Indeed with each star appearing or diseapparing at the same place on the horizon, these oceanic navigators could find an already explored island. By day, they would find their way using the sun, winds, the directions of the swells. Moreover, they would locate the presence of land about fifty kilometers away thanks to see birds who would return to land at night fall or from the waves which would return in opposite direction of the swell.