High Middle Ages · Oceania · Exploration
1200
Maori migration reaches New Zealand
1200
Polynesian voyagers, sailing great double-hulled canoes along patterns of stars and ocean swells, made landfall on the uninhabited islands they would call Aotearoa. Their moa-hunting descendants would transform the isolated archipelago into the southernmost outpost of Polynesian civilization. The giant flightless birds they found had never encountered a predator and vanished within centuries of their arrival.
In context
Also in 1200 (4 other events on record)
- University of Paris granted royal charter · Europe · Culture
- Angkor Wat shifts to Buddhist use under Jayavarman VII · Southeast Asia · Religion
- Chimu kingdom expands along Peru's coast · South America · Politics
- Hohokam build ball courts in the Sonoran Desert · North America · Culture
Before and after in Oceania
Before and after in Exploration
Era
High Middle Ages (1000–1300), one of 1,306 events from that era on Saeculum.