Heeding the flight-paths of birds was just one of numerous haven-finding methods employed by the Polynesians, whose navigational feats arguably have never been surpassed. The Polynesians travelled over thousands of miles of trackless ocean to people remote islands throughout the southern Pacific. Like Eskimos study the snow, the Polynesians watched the waves, whose direction and type relinquished useful navigational secrets. They followed the faint gleam cast on the horizon by tiny islets still out of sight below the rim of the world.
Seafarers of the Marshall Islands built elaborate maps out of palm twigs and cowrie shells. These ingenious charts, which exist today only in museums, denoted everything from the position of islands to the prevailing direction of the swell.
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This massive statue from Easter Island was buried up to the chest. When uncovered it revealed this
image of a sailed ship.
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