Welcome to the Cook Islands
Kia Orana!

706,500 square miles of water but only 92 square miles of dry land make the Cook Islands the wettest nation in the Pacific! Today they are a single island nation but distance and cultural traits historically separate the northern atolls from the partially volcanic islands to the south.

Polynesians discovered the southern islands by at least 1000 AD, and possibly much earlier. Studies of stone tools are providing us with exciting new evidence that settlement did not cure their wanderlust. We now know that the Cook Islanders continued communication with their neighbors to both the west (Samoa) and east (Society Islands) for at least 500 years after colonization.

At this island station learn how Museum scientists are "fingerprinting" the raw materials of stone tools and tracing them back to their original quarries.
Welcome to the Marquesas
Upstairs Gallery of the Hawai`iloa Exhibit

Back to the Hawai'iloa page
Back to the Past Exhibits Page
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The State Museum of Natural and Cultural History
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Revised on August 29, 1996 by mcb