Ancient Hawaiian population

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The exact population of the Hawaiian Islands at the time of Captain James Cook's arrival is not known; however, the large range of estimates from 100,000 to 1,000,000 illustrate the controversial nature of the topic and disagreement over the best methods for calculating it.^[1] What is known is that the first voyaging canoes that landed on Hawaiian shores during the discovery and settlement of Hawaii cannot have carried more than a hundred people, and perhaps even fewer. For the purposes of this article, "ancient" Hawaii is defined as the period beginning with the first arrival of human settlers, around AD 1100, and ending with their initial contact with the first Western visitors.