Ocean Debris during Prehistoric/Pre-discovery times

[snowthx]

Recent news stories about debris from the Japanese tsunami washing-up in North America, and that Mexican fisherman lost at sea for a year before turning-up in Micronesia, got me thinking about the same sort of thing in history. For example, did coconuts wash ashore in the US Pacific Northwest or in Canada, or other places where palm trees do not grow. Not sure there would be any facts around this, but I wonder what the local human populations would have made of them.

Also, ancient Hawaiians - prior to European discovery - perhaps they may have encountered drift-wood with nails or other iron, perhaps even writing, washing-up on their shores. What would they have made of that?

Is there anything in history that may comment on such findings?

I know there is ongoing debate regarding human travels from Polynesia to S America, but I want to limit this question to just odd debris that may have been encountered, and what the locals may have done with it.

[chacoguy]

If it’s prehistoric, then by the very definition, there would be no record of it.

[Colibri]

A marginal note that Columbus made in one of his books suggests that he may seen two dead Inuit or other Native Americans who had been blown across the Atlantic in a dugout canoe he was in Galway, Ireland, in the 1470s.

A rough translation of the Latin is:

Men from Cathay [China] come towards the west. We saw many remarkable things and particularly in Galway in Ireland a man and a woman on two pieces of drift wood of the most extraordinary appearance.

Another account alleges that during the Middle Ages a man “red and strange,” who was not a Negro, arrived on the coast of Spain in a craft made from a hollowed tree.

[Ignotus]

Nickernuts were used for medico-magical purposes in parts of Scandinavia.

Coco de mer was known and surrounded by legends before the discovery of the Seychelles.

[Quartz]

Thanks to the Gulf Stream, palm trees grow in the Hebrides.

[Broomstick]

People in the high arctic only obtained wood as driftwood as no trees grew where they lived, so there’s another example of ocean debris

[Kimstu]

If the isolated traditional society of the Sentinelese is any guide to prehistoric practices, they probably incorporated inorganic flotsam into tools and/or decorative items, while edible items like coconuts would be eaten:

Advanced metalwork is unknown, as raw materials on the island are extremely rare. It has been observed, however, that they have made adroit use of metal objects which have washed up or been left behind on their shores, having some ability at cold smithing and sharpening iron and incorporating it into weapons and other items. […]

Food consists primarily of plants gathered in the forest, coconuts, which are frequently found on the beaches as flotsam, pigs, and, presumably, other wildlife (which apart from sea turtles is limited to some smaller birds and invertebrates).

Prehistoric inhabitants of the Baltic coast collected amber that was washed ashore, and it became quite an important trade item.

The 17th-century “beeswax wreck” off the Oregon coast seems to have had a similar trade stimulus effect:

For generations, the Native Americans, trappers, pioneers and homesteaders of the area would continue to find broken hunks of beeswax on the beach and along the shores of the Nehalem River. Sometimes these artifacts were located alongside broken Chinese porcelain, clay pots and wooden objects. Over the years, so much beeswax was collected that it actually became a major commodity for the Native Americans who traded it with Euro-American settlers. Clearly there was some unseen source of the wax lying offshore, hidden by the waves and forgotten to time. Could it be the mysterious shipwreck told about in the ancient Native American tales? […]

Fortunately, the meticulous shipping records kept by the Spanish aided in the search. Two galleons had gone missing in the seventeenth century en route to Mexico from the Philippines. But only one — the Santo Cristo de Burgos — was carrying hundreds of tons of processed beeswax! Surely, this had to be the mysterious wreck the Native Americans told tales about and was periodically disgorging its cargo onto the Oregon beach?

[Quartz]

@Broomstick

People in the high arctic only obtained wood as driftwood as no trees grew where they lived

Did they not trade for wood?

[Broomstick]

If you lived someplace like Barrow, Alaska it was probably easier to gather driftwood on the beach than try to rely on a trade network that would have to bring wood across hundreds of miles. Sure, some might have been via trade but the further you get from forested areas the less of that you will find.