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| | | | Australia and Oceania |
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| c. 50 million years ago |
| | | Australia becomes a separate land mass, isolating its living creatures. They evolve into many species unique to the area | |
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| c. 60,000 years ago |
| | | The first human inhabitants of Australia make the crossing from southeast Asia | |
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| 4000 BC |
| | | Taro, probably the earliest plant cultivated in Papua New Guinea, has an edible root that needs to be mashed by pestle and mortar | |
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| c. 4000 BC |
| | | A beautiful pestle in the shape of a bird is made in Papua New Guinea, clearly more for ceremonial occasions rather than everyday use | |
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| c. 1300 BC |
| | | Seafarers reach and colonize Fiji, lying between Melanesia and Polynesia | |
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| c. 200 BC |
| | | Seafarers reach and colonize the Pacific island of Samoa | |
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| c. 800 |
| | | Seafarers colonize New Zealand, the last great island region in the Pacific to be reached by human beings | |
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| c. 1000? |
| | | The huge stone heads standing on Easter Island are carved and erected at some time between the sixth and seventeenth century AD | |
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| 1521 |
| | | Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan crosses the Pacific in ninety-nine days and reaches Guam | |
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| 1568 |
| | | Discovery of the Solomon Islands by a Spanish ship prompts interest in a possible Terra Australis Incognita ('unknown southern land') | |
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