Straight Dope on Native American Origins

Great Debates
1

A thread about the absense of restaurants specialising in Native American cuisine, of all things, got me thinking again about this…

I didn’t know, until I was planning to go to New Zealand and was reading up on the place, that a traditional Maori staple is the kumara, or sweet potato. What is incredibly wild (to me, at least) is that, unlike every other thing the Maori imported to Aotearoa, the kumara did not come from Asia or Polynesia, but rather the Andes region of South America. This is beyond dispute. What I also didn’t know is that indigenous peoples in South America refer to the sweet potato as kumar. It’s essentially the same word.

The current theory of Polynesian origins (informed most recently by rat DNA, no less) traces them back to Southeast Asia, moving through Melanesia, then expanding rapidly about 3000 years ago throughout Polynesia. It would appear that the ancestors of the Hawaiians, Rapa Nuians, and Aoteoroans (via Tahiti) spread out from the Marquesas (likely the location of Hawaiki, the legendary Polynesian homeland) during a wave of expansion that began about 1700 years ago, and brought the first people to New Zealand perhaps as early as 1200 years ago. Interestingly, the ancient Polynesians seemed to have raced East as far as the Marquesas, then settled down for a bit, only to radiate out, such that migration to New Zealand came from the Northwest rather than from the East.

You’ll note, of course, there’s no mention of South America in there. And no known genetic or archeological evidence can link S.A. to NZ. Yet you’ve got this plant, the sweet potato, and this word kumar/kumara, and both link Polynesia to the New World somehow. What is even more remarkable is that, apparently, kumara did not make it to Polynesia via Rapa Nui, but the other way around. That means somehow this plant and this word made the jump from the Andes to the Marquesas more-or-less directly, a trip of some 4000km. We know the Polynesians were among the most accomplished sailers ever, but this seems to be a feat beyond even their skill, or anybody else’s of the day. You could suppose maybe kumara drifted somehow on their own across the vast ocean, but it’s hard to figure how the word made the same trip autonomously.

The fact is, there’s a hell of a lot we don’t know about who was coming to the New World, and when. We make a big deal about Columbus for some reason, as if the history of the Americas could be described thusly: About 13,000 years ago (give or take a millenium or two), people from Northeastern Siberia migrated across the Bering land bridge and travelled down a corridor through the ice through B.C., and then fanned out rapidly to inhabit every portion of the Americas. No human migration of note occurred since that time (barring a few abortive Viking colonies) until Chris Columbus shows up in 1492.

In other words, for 15,000 years or so, as the story goes, the Americas were essentially isolated from human migration.

Can this really be true?

Another of my favorite places on Earth, Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine, is neighbored by the steep, barren hump of Manana Island. On the island is a rock with strange inscriptions on it. Some say they are of Norse origin. Some even think it was made by Phoenecians. I certainly can’t say, but I do wonder.

So, what’s the current dope on the Americas, and the people who came and went from here before the lauded Columbus, “discoverer” of the New World?

2

Not really.

Are you familiar with “The Voyage of the Hokulea”? I highly recommend the 1976 National Geographic special of same, if you can find it–check your local public library’s video section. It’s fascinating.

http://www.pvs-hawaii.com/Education/ed_curr_trackhokulea.htm
http://www.pvs-hawaii.com/canoe/canoe_hokulea_launching.htm
http://www.pvs-hawaii.com/index.html

They’ve been doing this for years, without getting lost or sinking or otherwise screwing it up.

Not to mention the Kon-Tiki, which admittedly was a one-shot deal, but it proved it could be done.

And, anyway, if they didn’t manage to sail themselves around the Pacific, carrying “kumara” with them, then what mechanism are you postulating for the spread of ipomoea batatas from South America to Polynesia–aliens?

Because while sweet potatoes do float (I went out to the kitchen and tested one just now), I seriously doubt whether they could withstand the weeks and weeks of floating in salt water that would be required, without either rotting, or sprouting and dying, halfway through their journey. If you cut one in half and stick it in a glass of water in the kitchen window, it takes about three days before you have sprouts. I can’t see floating sweet potatoes going all the way across the Pacific without human help.

I don’t have any problem at all believing that early voyagers traveled between South America and Polynesia, bringing “kumara” with them. But “Science” can only go by what they have evidence for, meaning the archaeological record, and so far nobody’s ever found a solid bit of archaeological evidence for this kind of thing, only lots of speculation.

Actually there are some theories around that have boat-constructing Asians arriving on the American Pacific coast in boats in small dribbles, here and there, right up almost to the historic period. It depends on who you talk to.

Dighton Rock could be Ogham, but–so what? I mean, we already know the Norse were here earlier than anyone had previously thought, thanks to the L’Anse au Meadows site. Science keeps finding out more stuff all the time, and revising their theories to fit the data.

If you’re interested in this sort of thing, I heartily recommend you visit the Hall of Maat.
http://www.thehallofmaat.com/maat/index.php

3

Andes Mountains. Volcanoes. Intercontinental Ballistic potatoes.

4

Now that’s funny, we have a Manana island off the coast of Hawaii, as well! Maybe I should go check it for inscriptions…

As far as Amerindian and Polynesian origins are concerned, theories abound but the cat’s still in the bag. Even the rat DNA stuff just shows the effect of the voyages that the rats managed to make. Even North-South evolutionary migrations of Amerindians are not consistant. We still have a lot to learn.

5

I’m willing to believe that people could have sailed those distances. Like my thread on ancient cultures last week, I believe that there are a lot of things that happened that we just plain don’t know about.

I mean, there isn’t much that says that Viking sailors could make it to the Americas but people before them couldn’t - they used relatively simple wooden boats and primitive techniques. The fact that people sailed to friggin’ Hawaii is impressive enough. I think they could have sailed further (and brought their own food).

As far as NA creation mythology goes, most of the South American tribes speak of darkness, then the sun rising, then a man walking out from the sun. I don’t think that helps the case at all, since the sun rises in the east. :wink: DOn’t know anything about the creation mythology on the other side of the Pacific, so it may or may not equate - but the sun was very important to almost every South American coastal tribe we know of (which isn’t a lot, unfortunately).

6

Manana Island, Hawaii

Manana Island, Maine

both bleak, rocky, barren outcrops…
located at opposite N.E./S.W. extremes of the United States…

I think we have certain PROOF here that

7

Well, actually, I don’t think it was aliens. And I also find the idea that potatos floated 4000km to the Marquesas, to be cultivated, and given the same name used by Peruvians purely by chance to be an inplausible scenerio. Clearly there was some kind of human contact.

The question is, what was the extent of it? Was it, like Kon-Tiki (I’m not a big Heyerdahl fan, I must admit), a one shot deal? Unfortunately, there’s no detectable evidence of intermingling of Polynesians and South Americans. Given how recently the contact must have happened, it should be possible to find descendants, if they survived. Maybe none did. Maybe there never were any. Maybe we’re not looking in the right place.

I’m just intrigued by the questions, and curious about what the current debates on the subject focus on, and perhaps have brought to light. Thanks for some of the references, by the way, they’re quite interesting.

8

There seems to be some pretty clear evidence that the New World was linguistically and culturally quite isolated since Pluvial Age times – that, in short, the overwhelming majority if not all of Native American ethnic groups came in via Beringia and the Ice-Free Corridor and not via prehistoric sun worshippers sailing the world spreading culture or any of the other hypotheses.

However, “quite isolated” does not equate to “totally isolated.” Brendan the Navigator, Prince Madog of Wales, and a host of other legendary figures probably did do something vaguely reminiscent of island-hopping to America. There seems some evidence of pre-Columbian contact along the Northwest Pacific Coast by Chinese explorers. It’s not impossible that proto-Polynesians may have made landfall on the South American coast and brought a few trade goods or staple foodstuffs with them.

In short, nobody lives in total isolation forever, and there’s a very broad range between “totally isolated” and the sort of bizarre scenario where the Mayans needed harbormasters to keep the European explorers from bumping into each other as they each “discovered America.” Probably the truth of the matter is that there were a few contacts which resulted in a little “cultural contamination” like the sweet potato (and IIRC cotton is an identical, cultivated plant found in both hemispheres in pre-Columbian times) – but not the debatable splendors of diffusionist theory taken to extremes.

9

They attatched a note?

I think we can safely say that there was “some” contact - maybe very little, but some.

10

*Sweet potatoes are believed to have originated in South America and spread throughout the tropical Americas into the Caribbean and across the South Pacific to Easter Island. Very likely the tuber drifted across the sea just as coconuts and some other plants still do today.

Because the general Polynesian word for the sweet potato is kumara, and the South American word is kumar, it was originally thought that this was evidence of cross-Pacific contact between South America and Polynesia. However, linguists have determined that kumara and kumar are totally unrelated and have nothing to do with each other. This therefore cannot be considered as evidence of pre-Magellan trans-Pacific crossings. *

from here: http://encyclozine.com/Sweet_potato

*“introduction … by natural dispersal; the seeds are viable for more than 20 years; they are hard and dormant unless sacrificed; they are impervious to salt water; and they are not buoyant, but the capsule is. I doubt that the seedlings could survive in the drift zone on an ocean beach, but conceivably capsules could
have been picked up by some Polynesian beachcomber, or seeds might have germinated along the banks of a tidal estuary.”

“Had man taken the sweet potato from Peru to Easter Island or Polynesia, I would have expected him to have taken clonal vegetative material for propagation, either cuttings, tubers, or plants, which would have resulted in much more uniform and less distinct clones than those at present found in the Pacific. I suggest, therefore, that the sweet potato was distributed by sea currents unaided by man and taken into cultivation in two places, which is not unlikely in areas where root crops were important foods”. *

From a couple of places, but quotes from: Tropical Crops by Purseglove, J.W. ( John Wiley & Sons, 1968 ) and Purseglove in

Spread of Tropical Crops in The Genetics of Colonizing Species (H.G. Baker, ed., Academic Press, 1965 ).

  • Tamerlane
11

I’ve seen those arguments. There are others, however, and I don’t think there’s as a solution to the mystery, as of yet.

The Beeb sums it up nicely.

12

Just to be contrary :D…

From the BBC: It is also quite certain that the plants did not evolve convergently in the different locations, nor did they drift to Polynesia before the arrival of human beings. For instance, the natives of Peru call the sweet potato Kumar, while the natives of Easter Island call it Kumara.

and on the counter-attack: *Besides the physical presence of the sweet potato in Polynesia, supporters of Polynesian - American contacts also cite linguistic evidence. They claim that in the Lima region of Peru, the native Quechua word for sweet potato is kumar or kumal. The Polynesians know the sweet potato by variations of these Quechua words so that it is called uwala in Hawaii, kumara in New Zealand and Easter Island, umara in Tahiti, and unala in Samoa. Unfortunately, this impressive linguistic evidence is inaccurate. Kumar or kumal was not the Quechua word for sweet potato. In reality, the Quechua word for sweet potato is apichu. Kumar does not refer to sweet potato anywhere along the coastal region of Peru. So, the best linguistic evidence does not support the occurrence of Polynesian - American contacts. *

from here: http://www.hallofmaat.com/maat/print.php?sid=74

The fact is it remains unproven. I don’t really have a problem with the possibility of Polynesian contact. But I also wouldn’t go so far as to say human contact was a near-given. The BBC has not yet persuaded me that natural propagation is impossible.

  • Tamerlane
13

Brand’s theory puts the first sweet potatoes in Polynesia in the 16th century. Yet archeological evidence puts the sweet potato in the Cook Islands 1000 years ago. Brand’s theory is not “subtle”; it’s incorrect.

14

Five years ago or so, I saw a PBS documentary show, I believe it was The Nature of Things, hosted by David Suzuki, which examined the theory that South America had initially been settled by peoples of Melanesian and African ancestry. The theory was based on skeletal remains that were clearly (according to the scientists interviewed) not Native American, but Melanesian and African in origin. Some of the scientists found Melanesian DNA in native Patagonian populations as well.

Suzuki himself did in on camera analysis of certain rock paintings, which he claimed narrated a story about Asiatic origin invaders killing off the original Melanesian origin inhabitants. How much of this was TV showmanship I don’t know, but it seemed convincing at the time.

15

South America was settled long before the last Ice Age…possibly as early as 200,000 years ago. There is a site in Chile which has been dated to 13,000 BC (Monte Verde), and I think that earlier sites will soon be found. There is also evidenc of contacts betweem south America and Africa…so the whole story isn’t known just yet.