I just read this.
Sweet potato was taken from its American homeland by Polynesians who introduced it into many Pacifc islands and New Zealand about 1000 years ago.
The only thing I previously read about Polynesians traveling from South America to the Islands was rejection of the Kon-Tiki hypothesis.
What else is known?
Where did you read it? A cite-less quote is neither persuasive nor informative.
I found a number of references to the hypothesis on Wikipedia, including this, on the “Sweet potato cultivation in Polynesia” page:
There is also an entire article on Wikipedia about “Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories,” with a section on possible Polynesian contact. Lots of hypotheses and theories, including using the presence of the sweet potato as evidence, but no definitive evidence, IMO.
IIRC, his hypothesis was mainly that they could have sailed from South America, which he did prove.
His aim in mounting the Kon-Tiki expedition was to show, by using only the materials and technologies available to those people at the time, that there were no technical reasons to prevent them from having done so.
However, we now know the Polynesians came from the East. At least mostly-
Recent genetic studies have also suggested that some eastern Polynesian populations have admixture from coastal western South American peoples, with an estimated date of contact around 1200 CE.[5]
That doesnt mean the Polynesians couldnt have sailed on to South America or Easter island and nabbed some plants. However, certainly there is no evidence of repeated trading missions or anything like that.
Polynesians had the technology and skills necessary to travel to and from the Americas 1,000 years ago. I doubt native Americans had the maritime tech to even go one way.
Also, it’s a lot easier to go from Polynesia to the Americas than the reverse, from a navigation standpoint. Pick any point anywhere in the Pacific, and go anywhere generally vaguely eastward, and you’ll hit land eventually. The other direction, though, your targets are small islands. The Polynesians themselves knew how to find those islands (there are subtle clues in the waves that an island is nearby but below the horizon, and you can look for shore birds), but others might not.
It’s interesting that the genetic admixture is from South America to Polynesia. Is there any in the other direction? It’s easier for the adventuring population to spread their genes: A seafarer (who was probably a man) travels to some far-away land, and gets a local woman pregnant before leaving. To get gene flow the other way, though, you have to either have seafaring women (who get pregnant in the distant land before coming back), or you have to transport back live people, which is logistically more difficult.
Maybe it’s because of the disparity in population sizes? A dozen pregnancies will have a much bigger impact on a small Polynesian island than ten times as many will have on the Andean civilization.
KonTiki Proved the South Americans could sail there. And some evidence does indicate they did get as far as Easter island. Mind you, the DNA evidence has shown that the native Polynesian people came from the East. Mostly, anyway.
There is DNA evidence for precolumbian chicken introduction from Polynesia as well as the sweet potato going the other way. The ploynesians certainly had the seamanship needed for the voyage.
My money is on Polynesians returning from a visit to the continent leaving evidence on Easter Island. As for Kon Tiki, all that proves is modern people with knowledge of currents, tides, celestial navigation, and (most importantly) that there is actually someplace to sail to have the ability to use local materials to create a sea worth craft.
Agree with this. The South Americans probably had the sailing technology and navigational knowledge to travel close to shore, while the Polynesians were prepared for multi-month voyages on the open ocean. The fact that the islands off the west coast of South America (such as the Galápagos) are not known to have been visited by humans until the Spanish suggests this.
Spreading their seamen.
But yeah, that seems like common sense.
Precisely. The coast of South America is not repleat with remote islands needing long voyages, and no history of wide-ranging seafaring, whereas Easter Island was colonized via the Pitcairn group that was later abandoned - two very long distance steps using Polynesian navigation techniques.
Anothe consideration - much of the population of Easter Island was abducted to the (South American) mainland by slave traders. There would have been almost 200 years of opportunities to interbreed before any genetic testing happened. Oral history is probably not the most reliable source of data on people’s lineage or assurances of heritage - plenty of opportunities for parents to lie about paternity over the centuries, in addition to acknowledged mixing.
Easter Island is small and some estimates put the maximum population at one time well over 10,000 by some guestimates (others say no more than 3,000 to 4,000). It would not be unusual I assume in Polynesian culture for some group to decide to sail further, perhaps even to South America, before deforestation made the larger ships impossible to build. Whereas Heyerdahl was using a log raft, not the ideal vessel for precise navigation.
Most of the discussions I’ve read admit some voyages to South American and back may have been possible, but regular contact was highly unlikely and not documented. Meanwhile, current estimates give the Easter Islanders maybe 400 years at best between a decent foothold on the island (1200AD or so) and the severe deforestation around 1600AD - most likely from invasive rats eating the palm tree seeds.
https://www.americanscientist.org/article/rethinking-the-fall-of-easter-island
Plus, not a lot of evidence the islanders had regular contact back to the rest of Polynesia, so any imports from South America likely would have gone no further.
Except of course- Easter island. And the Chiloé Archipelago, and the Guaitecas Archipelago, and the Chonos Archipelago - and maybe the Galapagos.
I think that leaves the Juan Fernández Islands as quite likely untouched (except for perhaps brief visits) until the post Columbus period.
You both missed the Chiloé Archipelago.
The Chiloé Archipelago may have been populated as early as 12,000 to 11,800 BC, according to archaeological discoveries in Monte Verde,[12] located less than 50 kilometres (31 miles) north
of the main island. Chiloé’s first ethnically identifiable inhabitants are believed to be the Chonos, a seafaring nomadic people.[13] This has led to the assumption that Chonos were the people who left behind most of the abundant shell middens (chonchales) of the Chiloé Archipelago, yet this claim is unverified.[14]
The Chono people came from South America, it appears.
Umm, the Chiloé Archipelago is literally within sight of mainland South America, while Easter Island is ~2,200 miles west of it, which proves my point even more - the South Americans had sailing technology and knowhow to reach nearby islands, but for whatever reason did not develop things to a point where long, ocean-spanning voyages were possible or even desired, before the Spanish came along. Populating nearby islands is one thing, but sailing off to the horizon with no known landing spot is different.
I’ll also note that the Falkland Islands off the east coast if SA is also not known to have been visited by humans pre-European contact.
True, but
You didnt specify. And the Falklands are a maybe-
Although Fuegians from Patagonia may have visited the Falkland Islands in prehistoric times,[20][21] the islands were uninhabited when Europeans first explored them
But also note- the Falklands, the Juan Fernández Islands and the Galapagos are quite inhospitable. And they- also with Easter- are all maybes for South American contact (except the Juan Fernández Islands ). It is not like South America had Hawaii off the coast. If you look at the Polynesians , they had a pretty lucky string of islands to find and populate.
The point is - there were not the stepping stone islands that encouraged greater sea-going cultures along the west coast of the Americas - the only exception I can think of is the massive canoes of the Pacific Northwest natives, which were more a result of the challenges of land travel along that coast than long distance travel out of sight of land. Whereas, the spread-out but not too far apart islands of the Carribean obviously encouraged sea travel.
Easter Island is obviously a result of Polynesian expansion, then isolated when the Pitcairn group was abandoned. My guess would be, if they had sent out further exploration west, they would have found vast but already occupied lands, which would likely mean no attempt to colonize further. Whether they did so, and left behind genetic souvenirs, is obviously unprovable so far. If explorers had made it there and back, presumably stories of big inhabited land to the west would be part of their folklore.
But if they made it there and NOT back, they could have left the genetic legacy without the folklore stories.
It took Europeans decades to establish the America’s were a “big inhabited land”. There would be little reason for a rare Polynesian visitor to South America to think their landfall wasn’t on just another island .
Do you mean east?