An Austronesian-speaking group linked to what archaeologists call the Lapita cultural complex reached and inhabited Tonga sometime between 1500 and 1000 BC. Scholars still debate exactly when Tonga was first settled, but thorium dating confirms that settlers had arrived in the earliest known inhabited town, Nukuleka, by 888 BC, ± 8 years. Tonga's pre-contact history was shared via oral history, which was passed down from generation to generation.