T.Heyerdahl shocked, surprised /s. ping.
“Men Out of Asia” by Gladwin speculated, back in the 40s, that Central and South America were reached by people out of the Pacific (and he even tought that remnants of Alexander the Great’s fleet were among them). Fascinating (albeit highly speculative) book. It makes sense to me that if Polynesians (and Melanesians?) could populate tiny islands far out in the Pacific, then some number of them would have made it all the way to the Americas.
India, Southeast Asia and Australia appear to have been populated by coast and island skipping out of Africa according to their own research.
Otherwise Polynesians would have kept on doing this cross-ocean journeying for centuries `til recent now but there is no evidence of early European explorers encountering sea-going rafts kon-tiki style.
But there is evidence of Eskimos reaching the British Isles by kayak via iceberg, Iceland and Greenland coastal skipping. Polynesians apparently didn`t go 8,000 miles across empty ocean with a boatload of pigs and people.- Another moonbat ridiculous supposition.
“Charlie don’t surf!”
Keep in mind that the Joman peoples of Japan were already exploring the Pacific down to South America over 14,000 years ago ... so anything is possible. Trying to pin down in more recent times who moved where when over this time scale is simpily research in search of grant money.
The advances in DNA testing are amazing. Now they can use DNA to determine the parent's marital status.
Genetics and linguistics are the real guardians of history.