Aono Raina High Sea

The Aono Raina High Sea surrounds the Line Islands, a chain of eleven atolls and coral islands in the central Pacific south of Hawaii. The islands sit within Polynesia. The archipelago extends about 2,350 kilometres from northwest to southeast, formed on volcanic foundations and fringed in places by reefs and enclosed lagoons. Early human traces are visible in the coral landscape.

Archaeologists have found remains of marae platforms and village complexes on islands including Kiritimati, Tabuaeran, Teraina, Malden, Millennium and Flint. These remains date as far back as the fourteenth century and suggest permanent or semi-permanent settlement. Most eighteenth-century European visitors overlooked them; Captain Cook landed on Christmas Island, at that time Kiritimati, in 1777 without recognising all the signs of earlier occupation. The surrounding ocean was a route as well as a boundary.

Its atolls provided occasional shelter, water and provisions for voyagers crossing a vast stretch of the central Pacific. The islands’ small land areas contrast with the broad sea around them, making inter-island travel and knowledge of reefs essential. The maritime landscape joins scattered habitats into a chain whose human history is most legible at particular archaeological sites and along sea routes.