Early Polynesian.
Posted on 06/04/2007 5:58:20 PM PDT by blam
Polynesians beat Columbus to the Americas
22:00 04 June 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Emma Young
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Prehistoric Polynesians beat Europeans to the Americas, according to a new analysis of chicken bones.
The work provides the first firm evidence that ancient Polynesians voyaged as far as South America, and also strongly suggests that they were responsible for the introduction of chickens to the continent - a question that has been hotly debated for more than 30 years.
Chilean archaeologists working at the site of El Arenal-1, on the Arauco Peninsula in south-central Chile, discovered what they thought might be the first prehistoric chicken bones unearthed in the Americas. They asked Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and colleagues to investigate.
The group carbon-dated the bones and their DNA was analysed. The 50 chicken bones from at least five individual birds date from between 1321 and 1407 - 100 years or more before the arrival of Europeans.
Two-week journey
However, this date range does coincide with dates for the colonization of the easternmost islands of Polynesia, including Pitcairn and Easter Island.
And when the El Arenal chicken DNA was compared with chicken DNA from archaeological sites in Polynesia, the researchers found an identical match with prehistoric samples from Tonga and American Samoa, and a near identical match from Easter Island.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
Early Polynesian.
And did what with it? Europeans came here and built a civilization that, in only 500 years, transformed the planet (as well as most of its cultures) and travelled to the moon. And the Polynesians... ?
http://www.tcinternet.net/users/cbailey/lithic2.html
THE BOW AND ARROW IN MINNESOTA
As Dan Higginbottom points out, the bow and arrow was probably in Minnesota by A.D. 500 and possibly earlier, just how much earlier is hard to say. In “Guide to the Identification of Certain American Indian Projectile Point Types” (1968, Oklahoma Anthropological Society Special Bulletin No. 3, Norman), Gregory Perno had the following to say about Avonlea..
“The Avonlea point is the earliest small side-notched point appearing with large scale communal bison hunting in the northern Plains from about A.D. 220 to A.D. 660 (Dates for Avonlea have probably been modified since the 1968 publication). It is found associated with the Middle Woodland Basant dart point. It is suggested that the Avonlea point may have been of Athabascan derivation and introduced into the area when some acculturation of the indigenous Middle Woodland (Besant) people with the technologically superior Athabascan invaders apparently occurred in the first two centuries A.D. . . . The time period quoted above indicates that this may have been the earliest arrowhead type used on the northern Plains. It also indicates that the bow and arrow may have been first introduced into the United States from the north, gradually being adopted sourthward and eastward by other groups in the next 500 years.
Yeah and they did SO much with it. Where's the Polynesian Empire again?
First the evidence that the Vikings came to North America is quite thin. It's a nice story though. Second, assuming they did reach North America, it should be pretty obvious that North America presents a rather much larger profile than do the Hawaiian Islands. I'm not sure but I think the North Atlantic surface currents might assist especially a trip originating at Greenland. I don't think there are Pacific Ocean currents which would help a Polynesian to hit Hawaii.
ML/NJ
I’m sick of this PC revisionism.
From “American Samoa” therefore America discovered America and we discovered our selves. Perhaps La Raza will give Azatlan back to American Samoa!
How is this revisionism? This discovery adds our collective history, it doesn’t reinterpret something we already know in a PC way.
If you think that the Polynesians were “peace-loving”, I recommend a read of the wikipedia article on King Kamehameha.
From the Introduction to the book The Kon-Tiki Expedition:
The Inca Indians whom the Spanish conquistadores found in Peru told them that they had inherited the land from a race of white gods. These tall, fair skinned gods, said the Incas, were responsible for the colossal monuments scattered about the landscape. The Incas had finally defeated these people in a great battle beside Lake Titicaca, killing most of them. But a few escaped to the Pacific coast under the leadership of the sun-king Kon-Tiki. There they had vanished from the face of the earth, or at any rate from history...
I question the assumption that the survivors were South American Indians. If the race of tall, fair skinned gods was annihilated, what DNA evidence could there possibly be?
Are you actually under the impression there was no one here before Columbus?
they may have been here, but they were primitive savages. Columbus brought civilization to America.
I would say so. But I don’t think te Polynesians introducing chickens suggests some sort of civilization. We brought the horses though. Earlier they had to run to deliver messages cross country.
Columbus' voyage brought barbarism to the civilizations of the Americans.
The lust for god and gold, and the murder and destruction they left behind, showed the conquistadors for the barbarians that they were.
Civilization did not arrive until a couple of centuries later.
At least the Americas were spared the Spanish Inquisition. Or is that the "civilization" you were referring to?
Unfortunately, the Inquisition spread to the Americas too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Inquisition
I see you’ve bought into the propaganda about the Spanish Inquisition. I won’t bother to give any links refuting it since you probably wouldn’t read them anyway. There are many threads about it on FR if you care to search.
Well, I guess that's just one of the "benefits" of the "civilization" we were hearing about.
I've read about the Spanish Inquisition, and more.
That, and the other Inquisitions (including the witch hunts) were some of the worst travesties ever to infest humankind.
The first record of a Peruvian Balsa raft antedates the actual discovery of the Inca Empire. When Francisco Pizarro left the Panama Isthmus in 1526 on his second voyage of discovery down the Pacific coast of South America; his expedition found Peruvian merchants sailors at sea long before he discovered their country.
His Pilot was sailing ahead to explore the coast southwards near the equator, when off northern Ecuador his ship suddenly met another sailing vessel of almost equal size, coming in the opposite direction.
Native Balsa Raft Sketch by F.E. Paris (1841) showing construction of a native balsa raft from the north-west coast of South America. The maximum length of raft is 80-90 feet, maximum width of a raft is 25-30 feet with a freight capacity of 20-25 tons.
The raft was manned by 20 Indian men and women, 11 of whom were thrown overboard, four were left with the raft, and two men and three women were retained by the Spanish to be trained as interpreters for later voyages. The Spaniards estimated the raft capacity at 36 tons, only a fraction less than their own vessel.
Their report stated that it carried masts and yards of very fine wood, and cotton sails in the same shape and manner as on their own ships. It had very good rigging of hemp, stronger than their own rope, and mooring stones for anchors. Many similar accounts described rafts made of long and light logs, always of odd number, 5,7,9 or 11, tied together with cross beams and covered by a deck. The larger ones had the ability to carry up to 50 men and three horses, and had a special cooking place on board in a thatched hut. The cargoes often included salt, another proof of their seaworthiness.
These rafts are navigated simply by raising and lowering centreboards inserted in the cracks between the logs. By raising and lowering these boards in different parts of the Balsa raft, the natives could perform on their raft all the manoeuvres of a regularly built and well rigged European vessel, and obtain speeds of 4 to 5 knots. Tiny models of the rafts have been found in graves, along with carved centreboards, near Arica in northern Chile. The sail was probably know on the Peruvian coast earlier than pottery and weaving.
(So, who's the primitive savage, hmmm?)
Shiver me timbers! Thanks Fred. Barry Fell pointed out that the first post-Columbian period voyager who discovered evidence for previous transoceanic voyages was Columbus, who was shown a coin of precious metal a Caribbean native had found while diving years before. :’)
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