104
6 Transoceanic Voyaging in the Pacific
diffusions are bitterly contested. The debate creates an emotionally charged context
for discussions of prehistoric Polynesian contact with America.
Diffusionists have always regarded the Kuro Shio Current as the maritime route
for a diffusion of technologies from China to America. In this chapter, in studying
the pre-Columbian introduction of the Polynesian chicken to America, we consider
evidence for the introduction of the melanotic chicken to Mesoamerica along with
an associated Chinese shamanic/medical complex. Doing so involves us directly in
the diffusionist debate. Though our discussion of diffusionism is largely postponed
until Chapter 8, it is nevertheless obvious that in the process of substantiating our
paradigm we provide a new context in which the cultural and artistic diffusion of
Chinese technologies and styles to America can usefully be reconsidered. For not
only do we establish the prehistoric maritime viability of the Kuro Shio route but
we establish that not one but two transoceanic routes of similar length, exploiting
the same oceanographic mechanism, were followed by Spice Island mariners for
millennia in two oceans. Their feats effectively reinforce the likelihood that, like
Spice Island mariners, Chinese mariners may have used the Kuro Shio Current as an
exploration and trading path over as great a time span. This parallel is reinforced by
evidence that Chinese voyaging to America, dating from about 1450 BC, was also
interrupted for 600 years by the global cold period that began in about 1000 BC [1].
6.2 Archaeological Evidence for Spice Island Contact
with America
The earliest evidence for Polynesian contact with America was proposed by John
Dunmore Lang in 1877 [2]. In the light of our paradigm and the role it ascribes to
the Kuro Shio Current, it is not surprising that this evidence focuses on Polynesian
contact with southern California. For southern California is the landfall predicted
by our paradigm, the landfall to which the Kuro Shio Current would draw mariners
following the current eastwards from Japan.
Lang saw similarities between Hawaiian and Californian single-piece curved
shell fishhooks dated to before 1000 BC as an indication of ancient cultural contact
between Polynesia and America. Reopening the debate on diffusionism in 2005,
Terry Jones and Kathryn Klar [3] discuss the case for a Micronesian or Hawaiian
origin for these Californian single-piece curved shell fishhooks. They summarize the
challenges suggested by anti-diffusionists such as Reinman (1968) who suggested
“that a migrating fish could have carried at least a single hook between Polynesia
and the New World” and Strudwich (1986) who argued “for independent invention
of these stylistically simple implements in the different areas of the Pacific”. They
comment on the similarities that previous scholars have noted between these fishhooks “with those from Micronesia (Kirch 2000: 180) and Hawaii (Emory et al.
1968: Plate 1, 65–68)” and note the sudden appearance of a new technology:
For at least 7000 years, line fishing was pursued in southern California solely with
bone gorges and simple compound hooks. These implements were supplemented with
6 Transoceanic Voyaging in the Pacific
diffusions are bitterly contested. The debate creates an emotionally charged context
for discussions of prehistoric Polynesian contact with America.
Diffusionists have always regarded the Kuro Shio Current as the maritime route
for a diffusion of technologies from China to America. In this chapter, in studying
the pre-Columbian introduction of the Polynesian chicken to America, we consider
evidence for the introduction of the melanotic chicken to Mesoamerica along with
an associated Chinese shamanic/medical complex. Doing so involves us directly in
the diffusionist debate. Though our discussion of diffusionism is largely postponed
until Chapter 8, it is nevertheless obvious that in the process of substantiating our
paradigm we provide a new context in which the cultural and artistic diffusion of
Chinese technologies and styles to America can usefully be reconsidered. For not
only do we establish the prehistoric maritime viability of the Kuro Shio route but
we establish that not one but two transoceanic routes of similar length, exploiting
the same oceanographic mechanism, were followed by Spice Island mariners for
millennia in two oceans. Their feats effectively reinforce the likelihood that, like
Spice Island mariners, Chinese mariners may have used the Kuro Shio Current as an
exploration and trading path over as great a time span. This parallel is reinforced by
evidence that Chinese voyaging to America, dating from about 1450 BC, was also
interrupted for 600 years by the global cold period that began in about 1000 BC [1].
6.2 Archaeological Evidence for Spice Island Contact
with America
The earliest evidence for Polynesian contact with America was proposed by John
Dunmore Lang in 1877 [2]. In the light of our paradigm and the role it ascribes to
the Kuro Shio Current, it is not surprising that this evidence focuses on Polynesian
contact with southern California. For southern California is the landfall predicted
by our paradigm, the landfall to which the Kuro Shio Current would draw mariners
following the current eastwards from Japan.
Lang saw similarities between Hawaiian and Californian single-piece curved
shell fishhooks dated to before 1000 BC as an indication of ancient cultural contact
between Polynesia and America. Reopening the debate on diffusionism in 2005,
Terry Jones and Kathryn Klar [3] discuss the case for a Micronesian or Hawaiian
origin for these Californian single-piece curved shell fishhooks. They summarize the
challenges suggested by anti-diffusionists such as Reinman (1968) who suggested
“that a migrating fish could have carried at least a single hook between Polynesia
and the New World” and Strudwich (1986) who argued “for independent invention
of these stylistically simple implements in the different areas of the Pacific”. They
comment on the similarities that previous scholars have noted between these fishhooks “with those from Micronesia (Kirch 2000: 180) and Hawaii (Emory et al.
1968: Plate 1, 65–68)” and note the sudden appearance of a new technology:
For at least 7000 years, line fishing was pursued in southern California solely with
bone gorges and simple compound hooks. These implements were supplemented with