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“...the western world has been puzzled by how the vast Pacific could have been navigated relying only on the stars.” Strap your undesirables to rafts and push

• joshuaheard 8y ago
  Right. If you're exploring, who cares what direction. From what I understand, though, they used the prevailing wind and wave directions to navigate based on knowledge passed down over the generations.
• ceejayoz 8y ago
  Or just folks getting lost. That's basically how the plants and animals got to these places. Some colonization was likely intentional. Some was probably accidental, too.
  • EdwardDiego 8y ago
    Accidental colonisation? They accidentally transported their livestock and staple fruits with them too? They accidentally sent several waves of colonisation to new islands?
    • Taniwha 8y ago
      well, not a lot of livestock - they did have dogs
      • darkpuma 8y ago
        Cook often gets credit for introducing pigs, but my understanding is that this is now discredited. >Pigs (Sus scrofa) have played an important cultural role in Hawaii since Polynesians first introduced them in approximately AD 1200. Additional varieties of pigs were introduced following Captain Cook's arrival in Hawaii in 1778 and it has been suggested that the current pig population may descend primarily, or even exclusively, from European pigs. Although populations of feral pigs today are an important source of recreational hunting on all of the major islands, they also negatively impact native plants and animals. As a result, understanding the origins of these feral pig populations has significant ramifications for discussions concerning conservation management, identity and cultural continuity on the islands. Here, we analysed a neutral mitochondrial marker and a functional nuclear coat colour marker in 57 feral Hawaiian pigs. Through the identification of a new mutation in the MC1R gene that results in black coloration, we demonstrate that Hawaiian feral pigs are mostly the descendants of those originally introduced during Polynesian settlement, though there is evidence for some admixture. As such, extant Hawaiian pigs represent a unique historical lineage that is not exclusively descended from feral pigs of European origin. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.160304 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.160... Apparently they also brought along chickens.
        • itwasnoaccident 8y ago
          A similar route of introduction can be shown for Pacific chickens and Pacific rats, both of which were introduced to most Polynesian islands in pre-European times. The full inventory of pre-European tropical crops in Polynesia alone runs to almost 50 species. A lot of this is covered in Pathway of the Birds.
    • 725686 8y ago
      Someone accidentally discovered island A. Goes back for livestock and fruits. Gets lost and ends up in island B. Rinse, repeat.
• madhadron 8y ago
  In this case, they were doing repeated voyages and running trade routes across these masses of ocean. It wasn't undesirables. The second major settling of Hawai'i, for example, was by Tahitians who took over and maintained strong ties to Tahiti for quite a while before they went into a period of isolation.
• deepsun 8y ago
  Building a raft, even a crappy one, not even sea-worthy, is a significant investment just to strap someone to it.