Today marks the fourth installment in a series of articles by HumanProgress.org called Centers of Progress. Where does progress happen? The story of civilization is in many ways the story of the city. It is the city that has helped to create and define the modern world. This bi-weekly column will give a short overview of urban centers that were the sites of pivotal advances in culture, economics, politics, technology, etc. The third installment can be found here.
Our fourth Center of Progress is Nan Madol, a city that showcases the far reach of the first seafarers. Micronesia, where Nan Madol was eventually built, started to be settled by the ancient Austronesians over four thousand years ago. It was these people who are thought to be the first humans to invent sea vessels.
Their invention allowed them to explore and populate much of the Indo-Pacific region during the so-called Austronesian Expansion. The Expansion peaked between 3000 and 1000 BC—although the Austronesians did not reach some islands in Polynesia until after the year 1000 AD and may not have settled New Zealand until around 1300 AD.
The stone city of Nan Madol, constructed around 1100 AD (with parts perhaps dating to as early as the year 500 AD), toward the end of the Austronesian age of discovery, stands as a testament to the first seafarers’ ingenuity and the wide reach of their exploration.
Before the advent of seafaring vessels, people could not travel beyond coastlines. As such, many hospitable lands remained uninhabited by human beings because no one could reach them. Various cultures independently created dugout canoes to travel along rivers, but the oceans remained impassable. Eventually, people came to wonder what lay further away—across the oceans. The invention of seafaring boats allowed the ancient Austronesians to explore new lands and quite literally expanded humanity’s horizons.
The invention of seaworthy vessels was likely a gradual process of improving upon river boats until they could handle the rough waters of the open ocean. To people back then, the ocean must have seemed as daunting an obstacle as outer space seems to us, but they persevered. Some of the early attempts at voyaging were no doubt failures, resulting in many lives tragically lost at sea. But each time that the explorers successfully ventured out a bit farther from the shore and returned safely their confidence grew.
The first true ocean-going vessels were outrigger boats: watercraft featuring lateral support floats known as outriggers, which are secured to one or both sides of the boat’s main hull. The outriggers help to stabilize the boat and prevent it from capsizing on the choppy waters of the open sea. The first outriggers may have been simple logs or fallen tree branches, but their shape was refined over the years with careful craftsmanship to maximize stability. To steer their outrigger vessels, the first seafarers often used sails woven from salt-resistant pandanus leaves.
In due course, the seafarers developed catamarans, or watercraft featuring parallel hulls in place of mere outriggers. Some catamarans were large enough to carry more than 80 people, and could handle being out at sea for months on end.
Today, the ruined stone city of Nan Madol stands on elevated, artificial islets on the eastern edge of the island of Pohnpei, which is a little smaller in area than New York City. The island is now part of the Federated States of Micronesia. Nan Madol is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site. Nan Madol means “in the space between things,” in reference to the canals crisscrossing between the islets. The stone city remains have been partially overgrown by mangroves and ot