system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Given that ancestors of modern-day humans emigrated out of Africa into Europe, and then spread across the continents, how did humans end up on remote locations such as the islands of the Pacific?
gpt
In some cases, like the ancient colonization of Australia and the islands that lie between Australia and Asia, which took place 40,000 years ago, we don't know exactly. The migration of humans there is taken as evidence that they must have had some seafaring ability even though no direct archaeological evidence (boats and the like) exists. Sea levels were much lower then, but even so there remained a 90km strait of open ocean that would have had to be crossed somehow.
Once in Australia, the human voyagers would simply have been able to walk to Tasmania, which was then connected to the mainland because of the lower sea levels.
Many of the Pacific islands were settled by Polynesians within what we would consider 'historical times', but because of a lack of written records among the Polynesians themselves the exact dates and circumstances of the colonization aren't always known. But in general, it's well accepted that they got there using the same shipbuilding and navigation technology that they had when Europeans first encountered them. They reached Hawaii some time between 300 and 800 CE, New Zealand in the same general timeframe (maybe a little later), and Easter Island sometime between 800 and 1200 CE.
If there is some other remote location you want specific information on, Wikipedia isn't a bad place to start.