Early period  Archaeological evidence at Chalan Piao on Saipan
indicates that the Northern Marianas were settled by an insular
people originating in Southeast Asia. They made a distinctive
form of red-slipped pottery, sometimes incised with lime-filled
decoration, closely related to Philippine ceramics. By AD 800 a
plain, unslipped pottery style was in use. Stone architecture
had also developed, characterized by parallel rows of upright
pillars topped with hemispheric capstones (halege). According to
early Spanish accounts, the pillars were supports for structures
called latte (for which term the culture is named), which may
have served as houses or canoe sheds. Each village had from one
to several latte structures. Stone and shell tools were used and
betel nuts were chewed, as shown by extended burials most often
located between the rows of latte.  The Portuguese navigator
Ferdinand Magellan was the first European to arrive on the
Marianas when he stopped there briefly in 1521. There is some
historical quest