From Taiwan, they first settled the island of Luzon in the Philippines before migrating onwards to the rest of Island Southeast Asia and to Micronesia by 1500 BC, covering distances of thousands of kilometers of open ocean. almost 5,000 years after the original expansion, with this term arbitrarily grouping a wide and varied range of cultures from lands as disparate as Madagascar to Polynesia.

This was followed by later migrations even further onward reaching Madagascar in the Indian Ocean and New Zealand and Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean at its furthest extent, possibly even reaching the Americas. The term 'Austronesian' arbitrarily groups a wide and varied range of cultures from lands as disparate as Madagascar to Polynesia. The term 'Austronesian peoples' can be considered problematic in this context, as this was a term created by white orientalist authors writing in the 18th Century, almost 5,000 years after the original expansion. The first true ocean-going vessels were built by the Austronesian peoples during the Austronesian expansion (c. Model of a Fijian drua with a crab-claw sail from the Otago Museum, an example of an Austronesian ocean-going vessel According to professor O'Connor, the 5,000-year-old ship may have even belonged to Pharaoh Aha.

The ship dating to 3000 BC was about 75 feet (23 m) long and is now thought to perhaps have belonged to an earlier pharaoh. Because the ships are all buried together and near a mortuary belonging to Pharaoh Khasekhemwy, originally they were all thought to have belonged to him, but one of the 14 ships dates to 3000 BC, and the associated pottery jars buried with the vessels also suggest earlier dating.

Discovered by Egyptologist David O'Connor of New York University, woven straps were found to have been used to lash the planks together, and reeds or grass stuffed between the planks helped to seal the seams. These are a group of 14 ships discovered in Abydos that were constructed of wooden planks which were 'sewn' together. The Archaeological Institute of America reports that some of the oldest ships yet unearthed are known as the Abydos boats. Egyptian pottery as old as 4000 BC shows designs of early boats or other means for navigation. History Pre-history 4th millennium BC Įvidence from Ancient Egypt shows that the early Egyptians knew how to assemble planks of wood into a ship hull as early as 3100 BC.

2.2 Modern shipbuilding manufacturing techniques.

1.7 Medieval Europe, Song China, Abbasid Caliphate, Pacific Islanders, Ming China.

Shipwrights building a brigantine, 1541 Admiralty law

Wooden ship construction