> So from Taiwan, they went all the way to Polynesia, and every place in between— why didn’t they ever go to Australia? Seems kind of hard to miss given all the little tiny islands they populatd instead.
This Taiwan-thing is a theory oft cited here in New Zealand. I don’t believe it, for the exact reasons you’ve said.
I believe their migration went east-west, not the other way ‘round. New Zealand, then, would be amongst the last to be populated — this synchronizes properly with commonsense and what little is known of Maori history.
But even if they went West to East-- that still means they would have populated a bunch of tiny islands but skilled Australia. So...why?
Now I'm going to have to Google this. It's supposed to be my lunch break.