Figure 11.13: Primary indigenous culture groups of Oceania. By 50,000 to 70,000 years ago, humans had come to New Guinea and Australia. About 25,000 years ago, people began moving across the ocean to nearby Pacific islands. Movement into the more distant islands began with the arrival of Austronesians, who went on to inhabit the farthest reaches of Oceania.
[Source consulted: Richard Nile and Christian Clerk, Cultural Atlas of Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific (New York: Facts on File, 1996), pp. 58–