AUSTRALASIA AND OCEANIA

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The regions comprising Australasia and Oceania are vast. The mainland of Australia is the largest island in the world and its smallest continent. Mainland Australia has a land area approximately equal to that of the contiguous states of the USA. The next largest island in area is Papua–New Guinea, followed by the north and south islands comprising New Zealand, and then Tasmania.

The remaining islands are small and numerous. These comprise either the tops of undersea mountains (resulting from volcanic activity and upward migration of the sea floor related to movement of tectonic plates) that emerge above the ocean surface, or coral concretions and reefs that have deposited on still submerged oceanic mountains to form small islands or atolls that may barely rise 50 metres above sea level.

Human Arrival

Occupation of Australasia by Homo sapiens started relatively early after the initial migration out of Africa roughly 60,000–65,000 years ago. However, reaching the rest of Oceania — that is, the islands to the east of New Guinea and further across the Pacific Ocean — was delayed for thousands of years. Substantial improvements in sailing skills and stable boats or rafts that could survive long maritime voyages were needed. It took until the last millenium for indigenous voyagers to establish settlements in the furthest reaches of Oceania: Hawai'i was settled in 1000–1200 CE, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in ~1000 CE, and Aotaoroa (New Zealand) in 1250–1300 CE.

The settlement of these vast regions involved sea voyage, often over considerable distances, and that required significant advances in boat construction and sailing skills. It is thought that Asian migration via the Philippines brought new people, the Austronesians, to the Bismark Archipelago where they intermingled and bred with the Aboriginal groups from New Guinea to create a new society known as the Lapita Culture. The Austronesians brought with them better boats suitable for ocean voyaging, and they developed navigation methods for long ocean voyages.

A current map of Australasia and Oceania illustrates the size of these regions and the distances traveled by those who came to occupy them.

Current Geopolitical Map of Australasia and Oceania
[Source: https://www.mappr.co/wp-content/uplo...itical-map.jpg]

The following map illustrates the approximate areas that describe the indigenous peoples anthropologically as Melanesian, Micronesian, or Polynesian. Note that this classification shows Papua-New Guinea as Melanesian and New Zealand as both Australasian and Polynesian.

[Source: Databayou.com]