They represented the furthest expansion of humans into the Pacific Ocean until the expansion of Austronesian-language speakers through the area around 4000 BCE, bringing new agricultural and maritime technology. Most of the languages spoken today in the Solomon Islands derive from this era, but some thirty languages of the pre-Austronesian settlers survive (see East Papuan languages). The first European contact was that of Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira whose expedition first sighted Santa Isabel island on 7 February 1568.