Current Events > Is Genetic Data Proof? South Am Visited Polynesia

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2487-2

Their genetic work shows contact between South American and Eastern Polynesians before Easter Island.

I assume South America made the contact. BALSA WOOD.

(You learn a lot poking in the bibliographies of wiki articles)

yea, the emerging picture is that the world was always connected.

there were always a few maniacs who would sail or canoe around the edges of the continents.

Nice to have this settled though.

I wonder how much cred these guys got. I think no cred and they did not care either.

It must have been great to do something that foolish and succeed.

So Thor Heyerdahl wasnt a crackpot?

He was a crackpot. Being a crackpot has no bearing on correct/incorrect.

To summarize the facts weigh in - - -

Peer reviewed genetic survey STRONGLY indicating people from Columbia, South America reached Polynesia near Easter Island before Easter Island was settled.

There is a tenant that religious sophistication comes from the center and does start on the outskirts. This gives weight to an outside group being behind building monuments for ancestor worship at Easter Island.

The sweet potato originates in South America but is a crop throughout Polynesia.

Chile has a native chicken but the Chilean chicken was domesticated in India.

There are currents in the Pacific which should carry a raft to Polynesia from South America.

Thor Heyerdahl sailed a balsa wood raft with a sail to Polynesia.

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And re crackpot. Crackpots are the lifeblood of human progress.

I had always heard it the other way around, that the Polynesians were the migratory sailors that crossed the Atlantic and disseminated foodstuffs and brought some things back.

Going to have to read more about this one.

Robot2600 posted...

yea, the emerging picture is that the world was always connected.

there were always a few maniacs who would sail or canoe around the edges of the continents.

Were there pre-Columbian exchanges over the Bering Straight? I mean, there must've been, it's not a very large distance to cover.

Thats how they say people originally migrated here

Alteres posted...

I had always heard it the other way around, that the Polynesians were the migratory sailors that crossed the Atlantic and disseminated foodstuffs and brought some things back.

Going to have to read more about this one.

Balsa woods stays buoyant long enough to reach Polynesia and Balsa woods grows in South America. There is a lot of brainstorming with these discoveries and a lot of cooperation from ordinary people. Consider 800 people who gave their personal info and genetic material.

If you want to show that Polynesians sailed to South America, then you would have to brainstorm up how they created the platform that would stay afloat and where you could find remains of it.

For instance the group that demonstrated that Neanderthals in Europe could build a fire 50,000YBP figured out Neanderthals would strike flint against pyrite and that there would be traces of pyrite on their tools.