No one knows exactly when the first immigrants arrived in Hawai`i. But most historians agree that the first wave of settlers got there sometime between the first and fifth centuries CE.
They came from the Marquesas Islands in large double-hulled canoes with sails of woven leaves. They traveled over 2,000 miles of open ocean! Archaeologists do not know very much about this first group. A second wave arrived, probably from Tahiti, between 1100 and 1300 CE. These settlers seem to have pushed aside the first group. Their culture is what we think of as ancient Hawaiian.
