Polynesians Beat Columbus To The Americas

New Scientist ^ | 6-4-2007 | Emma Young

[blam]

Polynesians beat Columbus to the Americas

22:00 04 June 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Emma Young

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Prehistoric Polynesians beat Europeans to the Americas, according to a new analysis of chicken bones.

The work provides the first firm evidence that ancient Polynesians voyaged as far as South America, and also strongly suggests that they were responsible for the introduction of chickens to the continent - a question that has been hotly debated for more than 30 years.

Chilean archaeologists working at the site of El Arenal-1, on the Arauco Peninsula in south-central Chile, discovered what they thought might be the first prehistoric chicken bones unearthed in the Americas. They asked Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and colleagues to investigate.

The group carbon-dated the bones and their DNA was analysed. The 50 chicken bones from at least five individual birds date from between 1321 and 1407 - 100 years or more before the arrival of Europeans.

Two-week journey

However, this date range does coincide with dates for the colonization of the easternmost islands of Polynesia, including Pitcairn and Easter Island.

And when the El Arenal chicken DNA was compared with chicken DNA from archaeological sites in Polynesia, the researchers found an identical match with prehistoric samples from Tonga and American Samoa, and a near identical match from Easter Island.

[elhombrelibre]

See In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick. It’s the story that inspired Melville’s Moby Dick. Twenty sailors were shipwrecked in the Pacific by a whale and 93 days later only eight were alive. Still, that’s a long time under these circumstances. And considering that they’d not planned for anything, that’s an amazing testament to what can be done, especially if you don't mind what (or who) you eat.

[Shots]

I will buy this theory. That might mean that they were here before those that claim they arrived by the land bridge first. In other words the native Americans stole the land from the polynesians. Nah who would have thought LOL

[blam]

The Chumash plank canoe, or tomolo, held up to a dozen people — and may hold a clue to pre-Columbian contact between Polynesia and the New World. (Photo courtesy Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.)

"Scholars swim in choppy waters Did Polynesians visit Southern California many centuries ago? The evidence — some fishhooks, a boat design, and a few words in common — is limited. But to some those clues are tantalizing, even persuasive."

[blam]

" In other words the native Americans stole the land from the polynesians. Nah who would have thought LOL "

It's more than you think. Look Here:

Vintage Skulls

"The oldest human remains found in the Americas were recently "discovered" in the storeroom of Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology. Found in central Mexico in 1959, the five skulls were radiocarbon dated by a team of researchers from the United Kingdom and Mexico and found to be 13,000 years old. They pre-date the Clovis culture by a couple thousand years, adding to the growing evidence against the Clovis-first model for the first peopling of the Americas."

"Of additional significance is the shape of the skulls, which are described as long and narrow, very unlike those of modern Native Americans."

[Sherman Logan]

Nope. The theory is that there was peripheral contact only 100 or 200 years before Columbus. Before that Polynesians hadn’t reached the eastern Pacific.

[muir_redwoods]

"The only ones who count are the ones who made a go of it....namely the indians."

It's not unfair to suggest that the Europeans have had a fair degree of success too.

Until we left the door open.

[pissant]

I was only referring to pre-columbus days.

[muawiyah]

Thor was correct that such voyages were possible. He was incorrect about the direction.

[blam]

First Americans Were Australians

[BGHater]

I’ve been to Queen Hatshepsut’s Temple at Dier el-Bahri several times and yes there is a mural there that includes corn and a pineapple. Both new world foods.

I’ll see if I can post the photos later.

[fish hawk]

The word “corn” in the Bible means “grain”, wheat etc. Look it up, it is not the corn we think of.

[elhombrelibre]

Corn and maize.

[Will_Zurmacht]

logical enough...

another arg is that colonization in the South Pacific accomplished 2 goals:
1. reduce conflict within the settlement.
2. reduce drain on limited resources.

I think Diamond’s “Collapse” mentions something on these lines. Either way, run for your life or voyage out to find new resources. In any event people were travelling more than we have imagined/

[elhombrelibre]

Just the other day, I was reading somewhere that DNA proves Aborigines were originally from Africa. And if you think about it, that’s a long haul somebody had to make long before jets. :-)

[blam]

Aborigines Came Out Of Africa, Study Shows

[hunter112]

You see what happens when you try to interpret a book literally, that has undergone many translations.

[Christopher Lincoln]

Only in America does “corn” mean specifically maize, once called “Indian corn”.

[BGHater]

please see post #30.

[hunter112]

I’ll be looking for the photo. Studied a little Egyptology back in college, things don’t always look like what the archaeologists say they are.

[elhombrelibre]

Thanks,