Did Polynesian voyagers visit Colombia?

The San Agustin archaeological Park includes a wide variety of stone sculptures carved between AD 100 and AD 1200. The park contains an amazing array of separate stone sculptures, in the shapes of animals and warriors and human faces, some mythical, some realistic. They are carved out of volcanic rock -- some are over 4 meters tall and weigh several tons.

http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/San-Agustin/blog-502867.html

An interesting question. More likely the taste for moai traveled from
Colombia to the Pacific islands, not vice versa, because currents and
winds down there make it almost impossible to sail eastward in the
sort of craft believed to exist then. Thor Heyerdahl demonstrated
fairly convincingly that travel from South America to the Pacific islands
was far more probable.

For a good short summary of Heyerdahl's experiments and reasoning,
see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Heyerdahl

Map of Kon-TIki voyage. 1947 I think.

Indeed, christiki295, 70 years ago, Mr. Heyerdahl first published his theory about the connections between Polynesia and South America (International Science, New York: 1941).
11 years later his research on this theory was published in *American Indians in the Pacific *(Stockholm: 1952), and of course, he would go on to conduct some of the most well-known modern archaeological quests of our time, including the Kon-Tiki, Galapagos, Easter Island and RA expeditions.

His life's work makes for a very interesting and engaging read and any of the following are highly recommended:

Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft (Rand McNally, 1947)
American Indians in the Pacific (George Allen & Unwin, 1952)
Aku-Aku: The Secret of Easter Island (Rand McNally, 1958)
Reports of the Norwegian Archaeological Expedition to Easter Island and the East Pacific (Gyldendal, 1961)
Sea Routes to Polynesia (Rand McNally, 1968)
The Ra Expeditions (Doubleday, 1971)
Fatu-Hiva: Back to Nature (Doubleday, 1974)
The Art of Easter Island (Doubleday, 1975)
Early Man and the Ocean: A Search for the Beginnings of Navigation and Seaborne Civilizations (Doubleday, 1979)
The Tigris Expedition: In Search of Our Beginnings (Doubleday, 1981)
The Maldive Mystery (Adler & Adler, 1986)
Easter Island: The Mystery Solved (Random House, 1989)
Pyramids of Tucume: The Quest for Peru's Forgotten City (Thames & Hudson, 1995)
In the Footsteps of Adam: A Memoir (Little, Brown & Co., 2000)

I posted this in the Kon Tiki thread a while back it may be of interest here?

Kon-Tiki-explorer-was-partly-right-Polynesians-had-South-American-roots.html" target="_blank">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8582150/Kon-Tiki-explorer-was-partly-right-Polynesians-had-South-American-roots.html

Bosko

This is really fascinating to think about. I've heard tales that ancient islanders traveled around or left their islands in small explorer groups never to return. Some Indian tribes in Southern California have said that their ancestors traded with travelers from the south pacific. I wish I could read more about this!

On 2011-09-20 22:40, kraken wrote:
An interesting question. More likely the taste for moai traveled from
Colombia to the Pacific islands, not vice versa, because currents and
winds down there make it almost impossible to sail eastward in the
sort of craft believed to exist then. Thor Heyerdahl demonstrated
fairly convincingly that travel from South America to the Pacific islands
was far more probable.

For a good short summary of Heyerdahl's experiments and reasoning,
see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Heyerdahl

It's already been established that polynesian traveled to South America.

And here is an excerpt from that wiki you suggested

Heyerdahl's theory of Polynesian origins never gained acceptance among anthropologists.[10] Physical and cultural evidence had long suggested that Polynesia was settled from west to east, migration having begun from the Asian mainland, not South America. In the late 1990s, genetic testing found that the mitochondrial DNA of the Polynesians is more similar to people from southeast Asia than to people from South America, showing that their ancestors most likely came from Asia.[11] Easter Islanders are of Polynesian descent.[12][13]

Anthropologist Robert Carl Suggs included a chapter titled "The Kon-Tiki Myth" in his book on Polynesia, concluding that "The Kon-Tiki theory is about as plausible as the tales of Atlantis, Mu, and 'Children of the Sun.' Like most such theories it makes exciting light reading, but as an example of scientific method it fares quite poorly."[14]

Anthropologist and National Geographic Explorer-In-Residence Wade Davis also criticised Heyerdahl's theory in his book The Wayfinders, which explores the history of Polynesia. Davis says that Heyerdahl "ignored the overwhelming body of linguistic, ethnographic, and ethnobotanical evidence, augmented today by genetic and archaeological data, indicating that he was patently wrong."[15]

So Thor was wrong and Polynesians must know how to do the impossible, sail east.

Aloha
Eric

[ Edited by: AlienTiki 2011-09-27 15:20 ]

Your "established" link doesn't seem to work, Eric.
And, HERE'S the corrected version of Bosko's link. (Good call--thanks, man!)

The real "Kon-Tiki myth" is that Heyerdahl thought (those we call) the Polynesians came from South America. That is an oversimplified 'strawman' version of his theories. Read American Indians in the Pacific, for more detail and background.
As best I remember: Heyerdahl thought the Polynesians encountered by Europeans were descended primarily from Asians, who traveled the coast north, across into Alaska and down to the Pacific Northwest. From there, some migrated to Hawaii, and from there, to the rest of Polynesia.
They found some of the islands already somewhat populated... by descendants of the people who rafted from South America, bringing certain foods (e.g., sweet potato), and a penchant for monolithic stone carving. The Polynesians conquered them, assimilated some of the people and culture, and wiped out the rest.
Heyerdahl also encountered traditions and stories that many islands had an aboriginal people there, before the South Americans or Polynesians arrived. They were described as darker-skinned, of small stature and negroid-like features. These people the Hawaiians called the "Menehune"; the Maori and Rarotongans, the "Manahune".
Heyerdahl gave serious consideration to the chants, stories and traditions that had been passed down for scores of generations, and used them to help interpret archeological findings, in some cases.
Anyway, I can't remember nearly enough to do justice to Heyerdahl. He collected and studied an abundance of inter-disciplinary material, to form and bolster his theories (that book was over 800 pages). I'm also not saying Heyerdahl was correct. But I've noticed for decades that most experts who dismiss his "crank theory", or declare it's disproved, are not evaluating his actual theory at all.

[ Edited by: Limbo Lizard 2011-09-27 12:24 ]

This is what I gleaned from Heyerdahl's writings as well - that there was contact between the Americas and Polynesia, but not necessarily migration. Especially powerful for me were the presence of sweet potatoes and pineapple as food crops in Polynesia, both of which had South American origins. The Polynesians' and South American Indians' names for the sweet potato also match closely and, in the case of Easter Island, match exactly. This wikipedia article is a good reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact

The word for sweet potato, at least, "constitutes near proof of incidental contact between inhabitants of the Andean region and the South Pacific", though the word for axe is not as convincing. That is, there appears to have been trade between Polynesia and South America, but not a mass movement of peoples.

On 2011-09-27 09:00, JONPAUL wrote:
Your "established" link doesn't seem to work, Eric.
And, HERE'S the corrected version of Bosko's link. (Good call--thanks, man!)

Thanks for the heads up. I fixed the link.

I think it's grasping at straws for people to believe that South Americans were the first Polynesians. Thor's theories don't hold nearly as much water as his leaky reed raft the kontiki did.
It's arrogant to believe that Polynesians couldn't travel east. However in the case of Rapa Nui Thor may have been partial right. The settlers may have came from Polynesia/Melanesia and South America and melted together into the Easter islanders that are left today. The quality of stone work
found on Rapa Nui that resembles Incan masonry is more proof than DNA. By the time of Capt Cooks third and final voyage the people of Rapa Nui were almost gone. So im sure that the Chilean islanders now have some indio blood. It's been part of Chile for over a century.

Mahalo
Eric

I had read in the San Diego Reader (a couple of years ago) that while developing an area at UCSD they came upon some native bones, an archeologist involved with the Kennewick Man said the remains resembled a Polynesian (which from what I understand is also a school of thought with the Kennewick Mans origin), this is all off the top of my head right now and I never read anything about it again, so this could be known to be BS or completely accurate by now?
People were probably traveling all over the place back in the old days.

Sorry about the link issue I have no idea how in enable that,

Bosko

"The dimensions of Kennewick Man’s skull most closely match those of Polynesians, specifically the inhabitants of the Chatham Islands, near New Zealand, the scientists say."
Scientists: Mysterious Kennewick Man looked Polynesian and came from far away

On 2011-09-27 12:00, Limbo Lizard wrote:
The real "Kon-Tiki myth" is that Heyerdahl thought (those we call) the Polynesians came from South America. That is an oversimplified 'strawman' version of his theories. Read American Indians in the Pacific, for more detail and background.
As best I remember: Heyerdahl thought the Polynesians encountered by Europeans were descended primarily from Asians, who traveled the coast north, across into Alaska and down to the Pacific Northwest. From there, some migrated to Hawaii, and from there, to the rest of Polynesia.
They found some of the islands already somewhat populated... by descendants of the people who rafted from South America, bringing certain foods (e.g., sweet potato), and a penchant for monolithic stone carving. The Polynesians conquered them, assimilated some of the people and culture, and wiped out the rest.
Heyerdahl also encountered traditions and stories that many islands had an aboriginal people there, before the South Americans or Polynesians arrived. They were described as darker-skinned, of small stature and negroid-like features. These people the Hawaiians called the "Menehune"; the Maori and Rarotongans, the "Manahune".
Heyerdahl gave serious consideration to the chants, stories and traditions that had been passed down for scores of generations, and used them to help interpret archeological findings, in some cases.
Anyway, I can't remember nearly enough to do justice to Heyerdahl. He collected and studied an abundance of inter-disciplinary material, to form and bolster his theories (that book was over 800 pages). I'm also not saying Heyerdahl was correct. But I've noticed for decades that most experts who dismiss his "crank theory", or declare it's disproved, are not evaluating his actual theory at all.

[ Edited by: Limbo Lizard 2011-09-27 12:24 ]

I feel the need to resurrect this thread since I just finished reading Robert Suggs book "The Hidden Worlds of Polynesia". Not only does he create a straw man by stating that Heyerdahl believes that "all Polynesians" are originally from South America (which is not even close to what Heyerdahl suggested), but Suggs also treats Heyerdahl with ridicule and contempt.

It's really quite sickening to read a book that was written in a very professional and factual tone, and then to run across Suggs' little irrational tantrum about Heyerdahl near the end. What a creep!

Granted, Heyerdahl did take advantage of the natives at times by using their superstitions against them, to procure items for his museum. But I don't recall him underhandedly demeaning his peers that don't agree with him.

On 2018-02-05 13:02, tikitube wrote:
I feel the need to resurrect this thread since I just finished reading Robert Suggs book "The Hidden Worlds of Polynesia". Not only does he create a straw man by stating that Heyerdahl believes that "all Polynesians" are originally from South America (which is not even close to what Heyerdahl suggested), but Suggs also treats Heyerdahl with ridicule and contempt.

It's really quite sickening to read a book that was written in a very professional and factual tone, and then to run across Suggs' little irrational tantrum about Heyerdahl near the end. What a creep!

I can't speak for Suggs himself, but usually what happens in these sorts of cases is that the actual researchers in a field resent the pseudo-scientists who have set the narrative in pop-culture. They want to be talking about all the cool research they've been doing, but they find they always have to be addressing the same questions over and over again, which have been roundly debunked over and over again.

Just by way of example, the other day a friend of mine posted this video to Facebook going on about how "nobody really knows how the pyramids were built, therefore, all my crazy-ass pseudo-scientific beliefs about cosmo-harmonic resonances are true!" So I posted a good scholarly article about how the pyramids were built in reply. I'm a professional educator specializing in earth sciences, and as much as I love Jurassic Park, sometimes I get a little tired having to address the misconceptions those movies have created.

[ Edited by: EnchantedTikiGoth 2018-02-05 16:03 ]

Problem is...Suggs' already presented his evidence throughout the book. There was no need to be rude and condescending if he had already made his case. Also, it does no good to refute against a straw man, unless your audience takes what you say to be gospel.

In most cases, we reflect on what we've written before putting it out there for public consumption, especially when it comes to print. That Suggs allowed his personal diatribe against Heyerdahl to taint his otherwise scholarly journal is a shame and leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

I also would find it ironic if his rant was as you suggested fueled by a disgust of pop culture since Suggs himself is nowadays (according to Wikipedia, anyways) charming cruise ship tourists with his tales of expedition.

If you can't beat them, join them, I guess.

The great thing about science is that fact will eventually win out. When theory is accepted broadly enough, long enough, it becomes dogma and ossifies. Evidence to the contrary is resisted. Given enough time and persistence, however, the preponderance of evidence wins out. There's a human tendency to want everything to fit into neat boxes. It's out evolutionary predisposition toward pattern recognition at work. But history and culture aren't neat and linear. The Clovis culture was long accepted as the oldest homo sapiens presence in North America, and is still taught as such in many textbooks. But the Gault site less than 90 miles away from me is turning up artifacts far older and pushing human habitation of the New World back tens of thousands of years. And there are other sites scattered around the continent with a similar impact. It'll be decades or longer before this new knowledge supplants the Clovis narrative. But it will happen.

The Kontiki expedition was hardly rigorous research in the academic sense, but Thor's efforts, although unorthodox, generated valuable data points. I expect that someday he'll be acknowledged for "proof of concept" if nothing else.

On 2018-02-05 20:34, Prikli Pear wrote:
The Clovis culture was long accepted as the oldest homo sapiens presence in North America, and is still taught as such in many textbooks. But the Gault site less than 90 miles away from me is turning up artifacts far older and pushing human habitation of the New World back tens of thousands of years.

At the risk of derailing, "Clovis first" hasn't been the model for about a decade... So much so that I don't even MENTION the "Clovis first" theory in the book I'm writing about the Ice Age :)

As you say, the evidence will out, and there is sufficient evidence at this point to show that while Clovis may be the first coherent culture to develop in the New World, they weren't the first people. The Gault site pushes evidence of human occupation back about 3000 years before Clovis, not tens of thousands. That is pretty consistent with the rest of the evidence for early habitation, which MAY push things back as far as 19,000 years. One could argue that humans migrated into North America during a warm period around 30,000 years ago, but there is no evidence to support that argument at present. What has emerged as the new standard model is that around 18,000-20,0000 years ago or so, people traveled down the coast of British Columbia, either by boat or hopping between unglaciated refugia, entered through the Pacific Northwest, and spread out from there.

On 2018-02-05 19:26, tikitube wrote:
I also would find it ironic if his rant was as you suggested fueled by a disgust of pop culture since Suggs himself is nowadays (according to Wikipedia, anyways) charming cruise ship tourists with his tales of expedition.

If you can't beat them, join them, I guess.

Again, I can't speak for Suggs, but for myself, I didn't say it was a disdain for pop culture itself, but for how the narrative in pop culture gets dominated by certain pseudo-scientific ideas that achieved a certain cachet for one reason or another. There's nothing wrong with using the same means to try and set the record straight.

I stand corrected. I'd gotten it in my head somewhere that the range was 20-30,000 years. I must've conflated it with something else.