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Hawaiian antiquity
Anthropologists believe that Polynesians from the Marquesas and Society Islands first populated the Hawaiian Islands at some time after AD 300-500, although recent evidence has pointed to an initial settlement of as late as AD 800-1000. It is not resolved whether there was only one extended or two isolated periods of settlement. The latter view of an initial Marquesan settlement, followed by isolation and Tahitian settlers in approximately AD 1300 who conquered and eliminated the original inhabitants of the islands, is hinted at in folk tales, like the stories of Hawai?iloa, Pa?ao and menehune. More recently, the theory that there was only one extended period during which groups of immigrants repeatedly arrived and contact with their former homelands was not lost until the early 2nd millennium AD has become more accepted among some scientists, as direct evidence for a massive conquest and a sudden replacement of cultural practices has not been found in the archaeological record.
Voyaging between Hawai?i and the South Pacific apparently ceased with no explanation several centuries before the arrival of the Europeans (although at that time, there seems to have been a general decline in overseas trade and voyaging across Polynesia; see Henderson Island). Local chiefs, called ali?i, ruled their settlements and fought to extend their sway and defend their communities from predatory rivals. Warfare was endemic. The general trend was toward chiefdoms of increasing size, even encompassing whole islands.
Vague reports by various European explorers suggest that Hawai?i was visited by foreigners well before the 1778 arrival of British explorer Captain James Cook. Historians credited Cook with the discovery after he was the first to plot and publish the geographical coordinates of the Hawaiian Islands. Cook named his discovery the Sandwich Islands in honor of one of his sponsors, John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich.
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