Polynesian DNA suggests epic voyage to South America 800 years ago

Re:Polynesian DNA suggests epic voyage to South America 800 ... by pigscantfly on Wednesday July 08, 2020 @06:03PM (#23774680)

There is some additional physical evidence for this in the form of plants and animals with American origin appearing in the archaeological record in Asia well before 1492. This paper [1] lists around 100 cross-hemispheric species. I'm not an expert on this, but I found the Phaseolus species (lima bean) evidence particularly compelling -- they are species of clear American origin with multiple unambiguous archaeological examples in India from as far back as 1600 BC. It seems hard to explain that without pre-Columbian trans-Pacific contact.

[1] http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp133_precolumbian_vo...

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Re:Polynesian DNA suggests epic voyage to South America 800 ... by danans on Wednesday July 08, 2020 @06:44PM (#23775033)

Without humans involved, it's not as unlikely as you might think. 2 examples:

The Silversword plant found on Haleakala volcano in Hawaii descends from ancestors found in California, presumably transmitted by birds carrying seeds.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyroxiphium_sandwicense_su...

Several separate groups of primates that inadvertently rafted to South America on floating storm debris:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/world/prehistoric-monkeys-cro...

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Re:Polynesian DNA suggests epic voyage to South America 800 ... by runarberg on Wednesday July 08, 2020 @06:42PM (#23775020)

The technology to voyage over the south pacific definitely did not exists in 1600 BCE. So trans pacific human contact is an unlikely explanation. More likely these particular species might have migrated them selfs (e.g. by floating) or with non-human animals (like birds) and later picked up while still alive by human farmers in India.

There is also the possibility of more crossings over the Bering straight. Inuits and proto-inuit cultures have crossed the Bering multiple times. I find it dubious that they never crossed westwards. However, the technological niche which the cultures of the far north have mastered over the centuries have less values in warmer climates so I don’t think much would have been brought from the Americas to as far south as India via the Bering.

Anything crossing the south Pacific from around 500 AD however can definitely be attributed to human crossings as the Polynesian cultures from that time period for sure had the technology for such voyages.

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Re:Polynesian DNA suggests epic voyage to South America 800 ... by irrational on Thursday July 09, 2020 @01:29AM (#23777206)

> The technology to voyage over the south pacific definitely did not exists in 1600 BCE.

How do we know that? Archeological evidence of wooden boats from that long ago in the tropics would probably be hard to come by.

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Re:Polynesian DNA suggests epic voyage to South America 800 ... by runarberg on Thursday July 09, 2020 @02:29PM (#23783410)

You are right, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. However extraordinary claims, require extraordinary evidence, and while there is no evidence of an ocean fairing civilization in the 16th century BCE I will believe the simpler explanation that the reason why American crops were cultivated in India is because seeds were brought by winds, currents, birds or insects, but not humans.

I guess I should have been more careful in may claim that “the technology did not exist”, and should have worded it as: “we have no evidence for such technology existing at that time in human history”.

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Re:Polynesian DNA suggests epic voyage to South America 800 ... by julienchastang on Wednesday July 08, 2020 @08:07PM (#23775661)

From the article: "One important staple across Polynesia is the sweet potato, which originated in South America."

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Re:Polynesian DNA suggests epic voyage to South America 800 ... by totetsu on Thursday July 09, 2020 @12:57AM (#23777070)

I looked into this a while ago. Unfortunately most of the pre contact sweet potato cultivars that were grown in NZ have been lost to time, as larger growing imports were adopted. There may be some original samples in a Japanese seed bank somewhere.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&object... https://www.jstor.org/stable/4257220?seq=1

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Re:Polynesian DNA suggests epic voyage to South America 800 ... by TheGallopedHigh on Wednesday July 08, 2020 @06:41PM (#23775009)

Well seed dispersal via wind and/or currents is relatively common over great distances. Hence flora on far flung islands...

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Re:Polynesian DNA suggests epic voyage to South America 800 ... by totetsu on Thursday July 09, 2020 @01:16AM (#23777146)

So lucky to just stumble across a domesticated starchy carbohydrate cultivar just washed up on the shore.

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Re:Polynesian DNA suggests epic voyage to South America 800 ... by eythian on Thursday July 09, 2020 @05:17AM (#23778350)

It's also notable that the New Zealand kūmara describes the same thing that in Peru is called kumar.

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