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Polynesian DNA suggests epic voyage to South America 800 years ago
- jeffreyrogers 6y agoSo that Norwegian guy[0] who built a raft and floated to Polynesia from Peru was right all along. Edit: Oh actually it looks like they're claiming the direction of travel went the other way. I can't see the full article, but I wonder how they can distinguish between the two directions. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Heyerdahl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Heyerdahl
- sradman 6y agohttps://sci-hub.st/https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2487-2 https://sci-hub.st/https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-02...
- mjw1007 6y agoThe full article considers both possibilities, and doesn't settle on one of them as more likely.
- irrational 6y agoIt looks like they aren't sure which direction the travel might have gone: "Our earliest estimated date of contact isad 1150 for Fatu Hiva, South Marquesas. This is close to the date estimated by radiocarbon dating for settlement of that island group13, raising the intriguing possibility that, upon their arrival, Polynesian settlers encountered a small, already established, Native American population. It was on the island of Fatu Hiva—the easternmost island in equatorial Polynesia—that Thor Heyerdahl hypothesized that Native American and Polynesian individuals might have contacted one another, based on islanders’ legends stating that their forefathers had come from the east39. The Marquesas lie at the latitude of Ecuador, and wind- and current-based simulations indicate that they are the islands most likely to be reached from South America via the strong east-to-west currents and winds at these equatorial latitudes4,40,41. We cannot discount an alternative explanation: a group of Polynesian people voyaged to northern South America and returned42 together with some Native American individuals, or with Native American admixture, as speculated in ref. 10. We have dated the contact event to the time when Polynesian explorers were, according to some studies, making their longest-range voyages (the century surrounding ad 1200)—a time when these studies suggest that the Polynesian settlers discovered all remaining island groups in the Pacific, from Hawaii to New Zealand to Rapa Nui13,38,42. The Tuamotu Archipelago, which lies at the centre of the Polynesian islands in which we found a Native American component, is known to have been a Polynesian voyaging hub, and according to simulations it is the second most likely location to be reached when voyaging from South America4. Further population genetics collaborations with these genetically understudied island populations are needed to resolve these alternative hypotheses." By "single contact event" I think they mean that all the contacts between Polynesia and South America happened around the same time period and stopped thereafter for some reason. So the contact could have been groups going in either (or both) direction around that time period.
- jeffreyrogers 6y agoThanks, that's interesting.
- anonAndOn 6y agoPerhaps they lost their wayfinder before the knowledge was sufficiently passed on? [0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Piailug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Piailug
- airstrike 6y agoThat's an incredibly interesting link. Thanks for sharing! Posts and comment threads like these are the reason why HN is so damn good
- azernik 6y agoThe most likely reason is that they found everything there was to find. This kind of exploration was a speculative search for new places to live, and as the returns diminished there would have been less and less motivation to head into the unknown.
- irrational 6y agoAnd, presumably, once they hit the American continents and realized they were not uninhabited islands, they would have had no need to continue exploring to the east.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- abrowne 6y agoThe great book Pathway of the Birds, about Polynesian voyaging, navigation and settlement, mentions the possibility of travel to the South American mainline. I don't remember the details, but the winds and currents support travel east and then north along the coast, then back west further north.
- danans 6y agoThey can't distinguish at this point. I wonder if examining the Y DNA and mitochondrial DNA patterns of the same populations might shed light on the gender breakdown of the genes, which might be something that can be correlated with patterns of gender representation in migrations.
- simonmd 6y agohttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929707606557 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000292970...
- danans 6y agoInteresting paper, but it seems to suggest that all the Native American Y-DNA on Rapa Nui is explainable by the 19th century Peruvian slave trade, not contact between Polynesians and South Americans centuries earlier.
- sradman 6y agoFrom the paper [1]: > Here we analyse genome-wide variation in individuals from islands across Polynesia for signs of Native American admixture, analysing 807 individuals from 17 island populations and 15 Pacific coast Native American groups. We find conclusive evidence for prehistoric contact of Polynesian individuals with Native American individuals (around ad 1200) contemporaneous with the settlement of remote Oceania. Our analyses suggest strongly that a single contact event occurred in eastern Polynesia, before the settlement of Rapa Nui, between Polynesian individuals and a Native American group most closely related to the indigenous inhabitants of present-day Colombia. Rapa Nui is Easter Island. No surprises on the genetic front but the navigational path sailed holds intriguing possibilities. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2487-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2487-2
- jeffreyrogers 6y agoIsn't the headline wrong then? If the contact occurred in Polynesia, then the "epic voyage" should be from South America to Polynesia.
- irrational 6y agoIf you read the article you will see that they aren't sure if there were people going from Polynesia to South America, or from South America to Polynesia. Or it could have been both ways.
- sradman 6y agoFor clarification, jeffreyrogers correctly states that the HN headline, based on the NYTimes subtitle "A new genetic study suggests that Polynesians made an epic voyage to^ South America 800 years ago", is wrong. As "irrational" points out, an epic journey did occur but we don't know the direction. To^ shouldn't be in the headline. Neither should "from". The Polynesians are proven navigators but the natural current from Columbia/Ecuador to eastern Polynesia makes the alternative path quite plausible as demonstrated by Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition.
- KhoomeiK 6y agoThis is a super interesting read! In my previous conversations with Prof. Fehren-Schmitz he was highly skeptical of any Pre-Columbian contact based on his findings in [1]. He says the issue is pretty strongly politicized, because there's a modern Polynesian immigrant community in Peru that would "benefit" if admixture is found, while the Polynesians in Polynesia are a lot more skeptical due to nationalist tendencies. I might be getting this backward, not completely sure, but his point was basically that it's super hard to study this specific issue because of the surprising amount of politicization there is surrounding it. [1] https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdfExtended/S0960-9822(17)31194-6 https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdfExtended/S0960-9822(...
- sosborn 6y agoAnyone interested in Polynesian exploration would enjoy learning about Hōkūle‘a: http://www.hokulea.com/voyages/our-story/ http://www.hokulea.com/voyages/our-story/
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago> One explanation: Polynesians came to South America, and then took South Americans onto their boats to voyage back out to sea. Isn't it easier to assume that both groups reached Easter Island independently and reproduced on the island with each other?
- tuatoru 6y agoAFAIK there isn't much (if any) evidence of ocean-going vessels in pre-Colombian South America. So probably not.
- runarberg 6y agoNot to dismiss your rebuttal (I don’t believe the technology for voyages cross the south Pacific existed in the Americas [south of Greenland] prior to European contact either), but it is also possible that some unlucky fishermen got caught in a storm off the coast, and was unable to return to land. They miraculously managed to survive while being carried with the currents to e.g. Rapa Nui where they were saved by the local population, nurtured back to health, and lived there, had children and then died.
- irrational 6y agoWhat evidence would we expect to find? I would imagine any wooden boats from that long ago would have long ago disintegrated by water, tropical jungles, tropical fauna, etc. long ago. Lack of proof isn't proof of non-existence.
- tuatoru 6y agoOral history, anchor stones, parts or fragments of vessels (carvings from the prow, steering oars, and so on). In Polynesian culture, an ocean-going vessel was a thing of great mana, having its own name and celebrated in many stories. Relics were revered and carefully preserved. I don't think Polynesians are unique in this regard.
- oxymoron 6y agoThere's a good book that came out earlier this year about the Polynesian expansion called _Sea People_ by Christina Thompson. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
- medion 6y agoYes, loved this book too!!
- ravenstine 6y agoIt's also possible that Polynesians visited North America. The Chumash people had relatively sophisticated canoes called tomols which have planks that are sewn together, which was a technique unique to them in North America, but has been seen in Polynesian and South American boat construction. https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Foil.piratelab.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F05%2Fsb-07-tomol.jpg&f=1&nofb=1 https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fo... http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=24433 http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=24433 > Archaeologist Terry Jones of California Polytechnic State University acknowledges that the Malibu Lagoon Chumash could have encountered Polynesian master navigators, who gave their tomol building skills to the Chumash. > Among North American Indians, only the Chumash, and later the neighboring Gabrielino, built sewn-plank canoes. In the Western Hemisphere, this technology is otherwise known only from the coast of Chile and among Pacific Islanders. The tomols were able to carry large loads for long distances which could allowed for navigation across the Pacific. I can't seem to find information on whether there's a confirmed Polynesian genetic connection to the Chumash. Probably unlikely, but I've always found the idea interesting.
- catalogia 6y agoIt seems conceivable, although probably unlikely, they might have learned the technique from Polynesian flotsam.
- BurningFrog 6y agoSome Polynesian canoe(s) drifting shore in California seems the simpler theory.
- ravenstine 6y agoTrue. That, too, is an interesting hypothesis.
- waheoo 6y agoThe simpler theory is simultaneous invention. Little hard to prove either though.
- pigscantfly 6y agoThere 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_voyages.pdf http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp133_precolumbian_vo...
- TheGallopedHigh 6y agoWell seed dispersal via wind and/or currents is relatively common over great distances. Hence flora on far flung islands...
- runarberg 6y agoThe 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.
- theklub 6y agoWhen I found out about William Bligh I figured these types of things must certainly been possible for a long time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bligh https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bligh
- ancorevard 6y agoHighly recommend reading the book Kontiki (or watch the movie) for the incredible story of Thor Heyerdahl demonstrating that sailing on a raft from South America to Polynesia is possible and a theory that now seems even more likely with the current DNA evidence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon-Tiki_expedition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon-Tiki_expedition
- walrus01 6y agoIt's my understanding that serious anthropologists have little but laughter and disdain for Heyerdahl. Perhaps because his methodology was less than exactly scientific, but also due to a number of later spurious claims he made with no evidence.
- vidarh 6y agoWhile that is true, a whole lot of anthropologists when he went on his first expeditions also laughed at the idea of pre-European contact across the pacific, and whether or not he was right about who visited who the evidence that his claim that there was pre-European contact was true keeps piling up. Of course he certainly went too far with respect to many of his claims, but he's not the only one with egg on their face in that respect.
- pge 6y agoDavid Lewis’s book, We the Navigators, provides an in-depth study of polynesian/melanesian/micronesian boats and navigation methods and is the best source I have found on the subject
- waheoo 6y agoI don't know how else people think maori's got their kumara but im keen to hear it.
- gerbilly 6y agoThe DNA evidence suggests the opposite, in fact. Many lines of evidence, linguistic, genetic, cultural suggest that polynesia was colonized west to east, probably originating in ancient Taiwan. Heyerdahl pulled of an impressive feat, but his raft was a real dogs breakfast compared to a voyaging canoe or flying proa.
- troughway 6y agoThere was a thread last week that brought up Graham Hancock. This is yet another thing that his work speculated some 25 years ago, and I think he did a 4-part BBC documentary that tries to connect parts of the world to a single, ocean-faring civilization due to the construction methods and whatnot used in the archaeological remains we have today. Of course, he's been dismissed as a crackpot so nevermind that.
- notahacker 6y agoThe people who concluded Polynesians may have reached South America based on their seafaring abilities are somewhat more likely to be vindicated by this than Hancock's writings about pre Ice Age Atlantis, never mind his writings about the pyramids' connections with civilizations on Mars...
- mywacaday 6y agoThere is one thing I don't understand for these epic journeys, whether it's trans Pacific/Atlantic, the Bering straight etc, what was the motivation to risk your life? Unless there was some kind of local conflict why would you risk the move given there was relatively unlimited resources at source destinations at the time comparef to population. What makes the first person decide I'm going to sail past the horizon and everything we know and risk my life, it boggles my mind.
- bpodgursky 6y agoThere weren't unlimited resources. Each of the Pacific islands (except to some extent the large ones like Hawaii, which was settled late) got to carrying capacity pretty quickly after settlement, and populations were balanced through some variety of ritual warfare, cannibalism, infanticide, and starvation. Plus, it doesn't take everyone doing it. It only takes a couple families in a couple boats, each generation, to hop across the whole ocean.
- svara 6y agoPart of the answer I think is that we often underestimate the level of sophistication of people who lived a very long time ago. Polynesians were expert navigators, they had a lot of knowledge of things like wind patterns, currents, birds, the positions of the sun and stars... and knew how to use those to orient themselves at sea. Long voyages were probably dangerous, but they may well have had the means to turn back and return home in case they didn't find land. This article is really interesting: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation Maybe discovering far away lands was to them meaningful for exactly the same reasons that it was later for the European explorers who rediscovered their islands...
- feedbackposter 6y agoExcept unlike european “explorers” they didnt murder locals en masse.
- deleted 6y ago
- pugworthy 6y agoKind of OT, but it bothers me that the caption of the lead photo mentions Easter Island, but the lead paragraph references Rapa Nui. Like... why did you create a pointer to an existing variable with a different name, then use them interchangeably? Or something like that.
- scottlocklin 6y agoI always liked the Zuni/Japan theory. https://www.ancientpages.com/2017/12/26/mysterious-zuni-indians-and-japanese-people-may-be-related/ https://www.ancientpages.com/2017/12/26/mysterious-zuni-indi...
- johndoe42377 6y agoFuck no. DNA cannot suggest any fucking voyage, especially in time. This kind of bullshit is an insult to intelligence and to the very principles of science.
- johndoe42377 6y agoOkay, let's state it differently. The problem with so called peer-reviewed abstract "sciences" is the same as with theology and any sectarian movement - that reviewers are from the same sect and praise effort instead of refuting nonsense. If you do logical refutation the whole field might collapse easily and leave reviewers out of luractive jobs and high social status. Precisely what happened to priests - from people next to God to merely funny freaks. Socially constructed bullshit is what we have instead of science. The principles of science including the one that only which cannot be disproved and experimentally refuted is accepted as a operational approximation to the truth, NOT some fucking current social consensus among some sectarian establishment. And no, DNA is too far removed from high level population processes to even try to establish a meaningful correlation, leave alone a causation.
- AlotOfReading 6y agoLook, I don't entirely disagree. There are often problems with trying to use genetics to talk about the interactions of historical people. However, historical sciences in general don't work that way. The evidence we have generally underdetermines theories and moreover, it's often still useful to use a theory that isn't universal for a more limited application.
- Tepix 6y agoGreat book discussing this topic in the context of human exploration: „Beyond the known“ by Andrew Rader.