Transport & space · c. 1,500 BCE

Outrigger canoe

A side float stabilizes a sailing canoe enough to cross open ocean.

Austronesian sailors added outrigger floats and sails to canoes, making narrow hulls stable at sea. Lapita voyagers carried this technology from Island Southeast Asia into the remote Pacific from around 1500 BCE. It began the largest maritime migration in history, eventually spanning from Madagascar to Rapa Nui.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 2

Sailing ships 3500 BCE
Dugout canoe 8000 BCE

What it led to 1

Polynesian wayfinding 1000

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

World population over a million years Latest: 6.27k million people (2000) Source: DeLong 1998, table 'Total World Population' (Kremer series); Kremer 1993, Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990, QJE 108(3)