Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Chema Hernández Gil :sf: (chema@social.sanfranciscan.org)'s status on Sunday, 21-May-2023 23:51:24 JST Chema Hernández Gil :sf:

   I’ve always considered the sweet potato in Polynesia to be the “smoking gun” when it came to Pre-Columbian contact between the Americas and the “Old World”.

   Now, genetic evidence appears to back up this theory. The article below concludes:

   “[We] find strong genetic evidence for pre-Columbian human trans-Pacific voyaging contact (at the turn of the twelfth century), contemporaneous with the Polynesian voyages of discovery in the remote eastern Pacific.“

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

   • Embed this notice
     Chema Hernández Gil :sf: (chema@social.sanfranciscan.org)'s status on Sunday, 21-May-2023 23:52:10 JST Chema Hernández Gil :sf:

     in reply to
     The mere possibility of even incidental contact between Native Americans and Polynesians nearly a millennium ago deep in Polynesia is exciting because it did not lead to the genocides of European settler-colonialism. A peaceful exchange, by all indications.
   • Embed this notice
     Chema Hernández Gil :sf: (chema@social.sanfranciscan.org)'s status on Sunday, 21-May-2023 23:52:11 JST Chema Hernández Gil :sf:

     in reply to

     One of the possibilities is mind-blowing: the estimated dates raise “the intriguing possibility that, upon their arrival, Polynesian settlers encountered a small, already established, Native American population“ in Fatu Hiva, South Marquesas.

   • Embed this notice
     Chema Hernández Gil :sf: (chema@social.sanfranciscan.org)'s status on Sunday, 21-May-2023 23:52:11 JST Chema Hernández Gil :sf:

     in reply to
     It's awesome to imagine the possibility that around 1150 CE there was a population of Native Americans in what is now French Polynesia.
     Paul Cantrell repeated this.