srsen
Am I to understand....

If anything, I think navigational lozenges like the Clandon Barrow were actually derived from the alignments of the four islands in question, and not the other way around; that is, these lozenges were designed specifically to encode information for thoroughly and reliably navigating the area in question.

The existence of lozenge/double spiral motifs at many of the Pacific islands (particularly New Zealand) and Europe (such as those found at Newgrange), combined with the multitude of strikingly similar astronomical observatories and sight-line networks found in both locations, combined with an increasingly substantiated potential for the settlement/exploration of these areas of the Pacific by ancient Scandinavians/Europeans, strongly suggests to me that these sites are connected in ways we are yet to fully understand.

By maintaining this opinion (and it is just an opinion), I certainly don't intend nor desire to diminish the capabilities or intelligence of Polynesians in general. The complexity of their migration from Mainland Asia is definitely not to be underestimated, and the island-hopping strategy they likely employed was essentially the perfect way for their civilization and culture to successfully complete such a thorough colonization over such a large area.
Furthermore, the vast distances covered by the Polynesian language-forms is simply amazing, and future archaeological or genetic evidence could very well establish an extremely ancient, highly active tradition of global migration by these peoples.

However, the evidence as it currently stands (and as I understand it in my admittedly limited capacity) does not encourage the existence of this ancient, specifically Polynesian, "empire". At the very least, it simply encourages the existence of some major "empire" or another.

I only lean toward a European origin for this vast network because they seem to have the most pieces of hard evidence in their favor, but that being said, I always feel strange talking about this kind of thing because it seems like we're trying to complete a puzzle with a dreadfully insufficient number of pieces.
Heck, we're probably using pieces from completely different puzzles altogether (which might be the key to all this, if you don't mind getting a little too serious about Tower of Babel archetypes).

Howdy Alexg

The evidence points to the Polynesian (and to a lesser extent the Melanesians) expanding into an empty Pacific basin. Very recent evidence (in my mind at least) has confirmed that they got to South America and there is some evidence they might have reached North America too. Unfortunately they were probably to small a group and Polynesian agricultural technique wouldn't have worked well on those coast lines. They were probably overwhelmed or absorbed by the local native Americans.

There is no evidence of a previous culture in the Pacific area.

Could you explain a bit more what you mean by "Europeans"?

I could not help but notice that several of the repondents to this blog have stated that pottery was not common to the islands. This is not true at all. In fact, pottery was used - as one of the sources had stated- on and off for years in Micronesia. In fact, the Marianas islands, just north of Pohnpie, is known for their pottery made from dark red limestone clay referred to as Marianas Red. These were believed to have been traded throughout the Micronesian islands.
As for the age of nan madol, there is no evidence - carbon dating or otherwise- that places the original construction of nan madol at 12000 years ago. This is flight of fancy and wishfull thinking. We know that the structures have been around since atleast the 1600s since western explorers to the islands had noted them at that time. There are several conflicting stories of nan madol ranging from actual oral stories of families who had constructed the city, to legends of an ancient civilization that was defeated by current Micronesian inhabitants, to myths that the stones flew themselves to their current spot. You pick your favorite.

Most people have trouble believing that primative, backward islanders could have possibly built such structures by themselves. This may be a suprise to those people, but there are quarry sites around the pacific were islanders just prior to world war II had carved out stone pillars (Latte stones in the Marianas), giant, circular stone money (some are as much as 12 feet in diameter), and paved roads and stone walls. The tools used to carve the stones have been found at the sites themselves.

PS No, the stones at nan madol are not "mysteriously" magnetic. I am still confussed as to why all these stories of ancient civilizations consists of magnitized rocks. I know they exist in some sites but it has definitely been applied to any site considered to be Atlantis in nature.