<Li> Slow Boat model: Similar to the express - train model but with a longer hiatus in Melanesia along with admixture, both genetically, culturally and linguistically with the local population . This is supported by the Y - chromosome data of Kayser et al. (2000), which shows that all three haplotypes of Polynesian Y chromosomes can be traced back to Melanesia . </Li> <P> In the archaeological record there are well - defined traces of this expansion which allow the path it took to be followed and dated with some certainty . It is thought that by roughly 1400 BC, "Lapita Peoples", so - named after their pottery tradition, appeared in the Bismarck Archipelago of north - west Melanesia . This culture is seen as having adapted and evolved through time and space since its emergence "Out of Taiwan". They had given up rice production, for instance, after encountering and adapting to breadfruit in the Bird's Head area of New Guinea . In the end, the most eastern site for Lapita archaeological remains recovered so far has been through work on the archaeology in Samoa . The site is at Mulifanua on Upolu . The Mulifanua site, where 4,288 pottery shards have been found and studied, has a "true" age of c. 1000 BC based on C14 dating . A 2010 study places the beginning of the human archaeological sequences of Polynesia in Tonga at 900 B.C., the small differences in dates with Samoa being due to differences in radiocarbon dating technologies between 1989 and 2010, the Tongan site apparently predating the Samoan site by some few decades in real time . </P> <P> Within a mere three or four centuries between about 1300 and 900 BC, the Lapita archaeological culture spread 6,000 kilometres further to the east from the Bismarck Archipelago, until it reached as far as Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa . The area of Tonga, Fiji, and Samoa served as a gateway into the rest of the Pacific region known as Polynesia . Ancient Tongan mythologies recorded by early European explorers report the islands of' Ata and Tongatapu as the first islands being hauled to the surface from the deep ocean by Maui . </P> <P> The "Tuʻi Tonga Empire" or "Tongan Empire" in Oceania are descriptions sometimes given to Tongan expansionism and projected hegemony dating back to 950 AD, but at its peak during the period 1200--1500 . While modern researchers and cultural experts attest to widespread Tongan influence and evidences of transoceanic trade and exchange of material and non-material cultural artifacts, empirical evidence of a true political empire ruled for any length of time by successive rulers is lacking . </P>

The two groups that explored and settled oceania were