Maori arrival in New Zealand approaches

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Polynesian seafarers from the central Pacific were pushing outward in long double-hulled canoes that would, within two centuries, reach the last of the uninhabited habitable islands. The voyages that would bring the Maori to Aotearoa were already routine in the Tuamotus and Cook Islands. The navigators read star paths, ocean swells, and the flight patterns of migratory birds with a precision that modern wayfinding scholars still study.