More than 1,000 islands scattered in the Pacific Ocean, east of Australia make up Polynesia - with peoples who are closely related and languages that bear resemblance to each other. That is, Polynesians include Samoans, Tongans, Niueans, the New Zealand Maori, and more. Their origins are those of the indigenous Southeast Asia, Madagascar, and Taiwan, a detail supported by archaeological evidence. One accepted hypothesis about how these peoples arrived at their respective islands is that they migrated out of Taiwan between 3000-1000 BCE, and that Polynesians all share the common ancestors of those early arrivals. Today, ethnic Polynesians are found as far from Polynesia as Hawaii, the descendants of the original Polynesian settlers of Hawaii - though historians debate what brought them to settle the island initially.