A later study argues for earlier, incremental East Polynesian movement beginning around AD 900 (with evidence from the Southern Cook Islands) rather than a tightly constrained 13th-century “pulse,” highlighting an ongoing debate over timing and tempo.
Radiocarbon evidence indicates the Mauna Kea Adz Quarry complex (island of Hawaiʻi) was in use by about 1000 CE, providing a key marker for early toolstone procurement and emerging inter-island exchange networks (with later intensification).
High-precision radiocarbon meta-analysis places the earliest secure East Polynesian colonization in central East Polynesia (Society Islands) in the early 11th–early 12th centuries, establishing a likely staging area for later long-distance voyages into the North Pacific.
The same high-precision synthesis identifies a major dispersal pulse after establishment in central East Polynesia, with movement into previously uninhabited archipelagos—including Hawaiʻi—concentrated in the 13th century.
Synthesis work on East Polynesian chronologies and improved radiocarbon methods has been used to model Hawaiian settlement within a relatively short window in the 13th century (often summarized as roughly 1219–1266 CE).
A large compilation and screening of radiocarbon determinations from Hawaiʻi Island argues that the most reliable estimate for initial Polynesian colonization on that island falls in the early-to-mid 13th century (AD 1220–1261), emphasizing short-lived sample dating and "old wood" issues.
Reanalysis and dating of short-lived burned fern material from hearth contexts at Pololū (Kohala, Hawaiʻi Island) produced calibrated dates spanning AD 1259–1390, consistent with settlement and land use in the late 13th–14th centuries.
Archaeological evidence for sweet potato (ʻuala) in Hawaiʻi includes remains dated to around AD 1300, indicating adoption of a major dryland staple after initial colonization and contributing to diversified food production systems.
Evidence summarized by the U.S. National Park Service notes intensified quarry use after about 1400 CE, consistent with expanding production needs in later precontact Hawaiian society.
ʻAlekoko (often called the “Menehune Fishpond”) on Kauaʻi is widely estimated to have been constructed in the 15th century, representing the growth of engineered aquaculture and landscape-scale water management in later precontact Hawaiʻi.
The publication of high-precision radiocarbon synthesis work for East Polynesia helped consolidate a later, faster settlement model for Hawaiʻi and other remote archipelagos, shifting scholarly consensus away from much earlier mid-1st-millennium CE dates based on less reliable samples.
A comprehensive reassessment of hundreds of Hawaiʻi Island radiocarbon determinations reinforced the view that the most defensible initial colonization evidence clusters in the 13th century, underscoring the importance of sample selection and identification in settlement chronologies.
East Polynesian settlement of Hawaiʻi (c. 900–1300 CE)
