Polynesian Contact with the Americas: An Update
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ต.ค. 2024
- Lecture by Dr. Terry Jones on 3/18/21
The possibility of prehistoric Polynesian contact with the Americas has been considered by historians, archaeologists, and other scholars for centuries. Most evidence and most scholarly discourse have focused on South America, but as early as the 1930s, Alfred Kroeber suggested that cultural similarities between southern California and Oceania could be the product of prehistoric trans-oceanic diffusion. Here I review archaeological, linguistic, and other evidence for such contact in North and South America with an emphasis on recent genetic studies that challenge some longstanding ideas.
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About the San Diego Archaeological Center
The San Diego Archaeological Center is a nonprofit curation facility and museum where visitors can learn the story of how people have lived in San Diego County for the past 10,000 years. In addition to its role as a museum, the Center serves as an education and research facility and is the only local organization dedicated to the collection, study, curation and exhibition of San Diego County’s archaeological artifacts.
Note: The views and opinions expressed in this video are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the San Diego Archaeological Center.
Back in 2015, purely by coincidence, myself, my ex-wife, who’s Peruvian and speaks fluent Spanish, along with our 3 children, we all visited the Museum of Lambayeque in Northern Peru. It was an unreal experience. Because here they were telling a big group of visitors, of their cultural narratives of contact with Polynesians. I couldn’t believe my ears, they had no clue I was Māori, but here I was looking at paintings from local artists in this museum, that told their stories of an ocean voyaging people coming from the West. So far as to say, that their ancient leader, the “Lord of Sipan” had Polynesian ancestry. I stood there in this group, just shaking my head in bewilderment. All my life I’ve heard talk of Polynesian contact with South America, but always from our side. But here I was hearing the same talk from the other side. I still cannot believe the events of that day happened. Absolutely surreal.
There are similarities in the words for sweet potato in polynesian and south american. Kumara and kumala
Pre-Columbian contact across the Pacific is not an extraordinary claim. It's inherently plausible and perfectly legitimate to look into. There is no reason that higher evidentiary standards should apply here than in, say, the peopling of the (rest of) the Pacific. A requirement like that smacks of an ambition to preserve a European primacy in contact with the Americas. Perhaps an issue to look into is that of microbes. We know of the catastrophic effects of the Native American encounter with Old World infections. Is there any reason why that problem would not have arisen with contact from the Pacific?
35:26 that’s sad. Just like that her theory is still dismissed despite proving that calibration wasn’t needed and her findings were accurate?
Given the enormous maritime success of the Polynesians all over the Pacific, it seems inherently likely that there was contact. It would be surprising if the Polynesians suddenly stopped. They would not have known that they were out of islands. They did reach Madagascar.The Polynesians seems to have preferred unpopulated new territories. That may have been scarce in the Americas, which could explain why there were no (persistent) Polynesian settlements in the Americas. It also appears that the Polynesians may have discovered the Americas for themselves just before the Europeans. They seem to have beaten the Norse by a hundred years or so and then again in the 14th and 15th centuries, just before Columbus.
Aloha
I knew nothing about Hawaiian history until recently and only after living on Kauai Hawaii for 15 years. I spent a good amount of time traversing the Backcountry and what I found doesn't make sense. The entire Napali coast on Kauai has been "built" up. There's thousands of acres of terracing and thousands and thousands of multi ton boulders entirely above ground all over the areas terraced. I cannot imagine how they ended up there after the terracing was done. I believe they were part of the ruins, part of the original build and destroyed in 1819 by orders given by Kamahumana. The Menehune we're a real people living here and evidence is everywhere. The Tahitians conquered them and assimilated them into their society. The Mu we're also a real people who were assimilated into the Menehune society. Alex Pua on Molokai and Bruce Wichman on Kauai (both reputable people) claim this to be true. The land masses before the great deluge 12,600 years ago was much greater in Polynesia with the ocean level 450' lower. We should take another look at the ruins on Hawaii.
Mahalo
wow that took a turn towards fantasy! the menehune were not real, and people have only been in hawaii since around 1200AD. maybe you've been watching too much graham hancock?
I haven't been in school recently nor have I ever had an anthropology or archeology class. However, I read and re-read "Hawaii" by Michener when I was a teenager in the 60s (in Oregon) which awakened my curiosity on these and related subjects. I remain a voracious reader.
I don't remember where or when I read it, but I have been aware of a possible genetic link between Hawaiians and West Coast Native Americans for some years.
Thanks for this talk. Very interestìng.
Thank you both for this conversation because as a polynesian I appreciate the positive knowledge about our culture. Growing up our language and culture was forbidden and almost lost.
Rewrite the history not Columbus- Polynesian reached China and America first including the Antarctic
I was interested looking at the map when you were discussing the Polynesian Triangle, I am aware of the cultural, linguistical, and genetic connections between Maori and the ethnic people of Taiwan. Also in 2019 I visited Yakushima, Japan and speaking with a Maori tour guide living and working on the island he spoke about some language similarities he had come across while in Japan. With Yakushima only being approximately 750 miles from Taiwan, what is the likelihood that Polynesian settled the southern islands of the Japanese archipelago before the current ethnic Japanese?
I was excited but you guys are wrong about a lot of the things you stated about the history of Polynesian people. The history goes way back than you guys said. There’s many scientific findings such as the kaimanamana wall in nz that proves that this is all wrong. Who’s to say Europeans didn’t learn from the people of Polynesia when they came drifting along the coast in their beautiful boats?
The continents of Africa, Asia, and thousands of miles of seperation.
The Kaimanawa wall is not a real thing. It is a natural rock formation - that is all. People say it is real in the hope of propagating their own imaginary views of human settlement of Aotearoa. Fake news as Trump would say.
the kaimanawa wall is a natural feature. science shows the first people of nz were the eastern polynesian ancestors of maori, arriving in nz from around 1250AD.
@TeKoha791 there are no 13th century maps of nz.
@TeKoha791 not saying that you are incorrect, but how did they know no-one was living there? Did they go on land?
Giant birds still exist to this day in Australia and the aboriginal people's have been here for 40'000-60'000 years. So giant birds existing isn't a proxy for no human occupation.
I love the ceramic chicken art.
I bet Abel Tasman would be a bit miffed if he read that grade school text book, have been the first European to see Nieuw Zeeland and encounter Maori, some 127 years before Cook.
In kanaka maoli kahiki refers tahiti as k is replaced with t
46:37 is it accurate to use proto-Polynesian words for comparison?
By the time deep sea navigating was established (I’m assuming it would be when the Polynesians left west Polynesia), proto-Polynesian language would’ve surely evolved to Samoic or Tongic by then right?
idk but i'd guess that the deep sea navigating was what led to the diversification of the various dialects of Polynesian we know today. They are very similar and if you know one you can understand others. I can even understand a bit of Maori from living in Hawaii (e.g. Roa and Loa, long)
Verry interesting.
Polynesia seems to have been colonised by humans very late in our history. What happened to propel these argonauts over these enormous distances, something no-one seems to have done before?
Diffusion: Look at Japan in the 19th Century. Or the spread of silk from China to Europe. Etc.
It is curious how constrained Academia seems to be. I haven't studied any of this stuff at university. However, I now don't remember where I read about this very issue, but it wasn't very recently. Probably something like 20 years ago. And, of course, Heyerdahl raised the question in principle (whatever you may think about his theories otherwise).
Many of the ideas still seem smothered by racist colonial mindsets.
I've only recently read fringe (but not disputed) research on how aboriginal people may have performed the worlds first animal husbandry, forestry, fish farming and crop farming (including selective breeding). They were also likely the worlds first bakers.
All it takes to discover this information is to read the earliest European records, do some archeology and ask aboriginal elders about their ancestors.
James Cook DID discover. Not for everbody, but he discovered a lot of stuff for Europeans. That is still discovery. He did not invent, say, Polynesia, but that's different. Europeans didn't know all this. Until Cook came back. Which makes it a discovery.
James cook definitely discovered the Polynesian realm. Same way a scammer discover my cars extended warranty expiring.
Agree! I discovered a great food truck on the other side of town. Many people can discover the same thing.
We could even challenge the idea that "first" can be determined scientifically. Likely the first person left no lasting trace and couldn't be found even with a billion dollar grant.
Most Polynesian place names and words seem to be a mix of French and Spanish with occasional English. Like "Vanuatu" - Va nu a tout - In French it means "Go completely naked" or "va nu a tu" - Go naked, go yourself/go alone" - My guess is the islanders there killed people who were dressed, since they could potentially hide weapons or their clothing could be infested with bugs etc... And "Kiribati" - Qui Rebati in French means "Who Rebuilds". Ton gars (the r and s are silent, so "ton ga"...) means "your guy" in French. If you say "hay agua aqui" which means "there's water here" in Spanish fast? Hawaii, it even has the same cadence. Vandravandra, in Fiji - "Vendre, a vendre" means "Sale, for sale" in French. Tuamotu "Tu a mot, tu?" "Do you have the word, you?" - I would assume that refers to a password that initiated chiefs got so they would know who were the allies of the Europeans who visited and traded and treated them well. - There are soooo many more examples I could point out. It's weird, hard to brush it off as a coincidence, especially given part of the area is still known as "French Polynesia".
I agree. Another example is the word Samoa which means "p*nis chomper" in French. Or Hawaii which means "c*nt licker" in Spanish