information:extraction, structural:summarization
Early history

Samoa was discovered and settled by the Lapita people (Austronesian people who spoke Oceanic languages), who travelled from Island Melanesia. The earliest human remains found in Samoa are dated to between roughly 2,900 and 3,500 years ago. The remains were discovered at a Lapita site at Mulifanua, and the scientists' findings were published in 1974. The Samoans' origins have been studied in modern times through scientific research on Polynesian genetics, linguistics, and anthropology. Although this research is ongoing, a number of theories have been proposed. One theory is that the original Samoans were Austronesians who arrived during a final period of eastward expansion of the Lapita peoples out of Southeast Asia and Melanesia between 2,500 and 1,500 BCE.

Intimate sociocultural and genetic ties were maintained between Samoa, Fiji, and Tonga, and the archaeological record supports oral tradition and native genealogies that indicate interisland voyaging and intermarriage among precolonial Samoans, Fijians, and Tongans. Notable figures in Samoan history included the Tui Manu'a line, Queen Salamasina, King Fonoti and the four tama a ʻāiga: Malietoa, Tupua Tamasese, Mataʻafa, and Tuimalealiʻifano. Nafanua was a famous woman warrior who was deified in ancient Samoan religion and whose patronage was highly sought after by successive Samoan rulers.

Today, all of Samoa is united under its two principal royal families: the Sā Malietoa of the ancient Malietoa lineage that defeated the Tongans in the 13th century; and the Sā Tupua, Queen Salamasina's descendants and heirs who ruled Samoa in the centuries that followed her reign. Within these two principal lineages are the four highest titles of Samoa – the elder titles of Malietoa and Tupua Tamasese of antiquity and the newer Mataʻafa and Tuimalealiʻifano titles, which rose to prominence in 19th-century wars that preceded the colonial period. These four titles form the apex of the Samoan matai system as it stands today.

Contact with Europeans began in the early 18th century. Jacob Roggeveen, a Dutchman, was the first known non-Polynesian to sight the Samoan islands in 1722. This visit was followed by French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, who named them the Navigator Islands in 1768. Contact was limited before the 1830s, which is when English missionaries of the London Missionary Society, whalers, and traders began arriving.