108
6 Transoceanic Voyaging in the Pacific
Hawaii was still being used at this date. Southern California, we have suggested,
was the eastern terminus for that route.
Jones and Klar’s map of the distribution of sewn-plank boat construction shows
full sewn-plank construction for the Philippines, for the Caroline, Marshall, Gilbert
and Ellice Islands of Micronesia, for the New Hebrides, Fiji, the Marquesas and
Easter Island and New Zealand but only sewn on washstrakes or gunwhales in
Tonga, Samoa, Hawaii, the Society Islands and the Tuamotu. Their map suggests early distribution of the technology of full sewn-plank construction through
Micronesia and the loss of the technology in Hawaii following the southern incursions in about AD 1100. It suggests early knowledge of the technology in New
Zealand and Fiji.
The archaeological evidence for Polynesian contact with southern California
both before 1000 BC and after AD 300 thus fulfils the prediction inherent in our
paradigm that Spice Island explorers and/or colonists, in two waves separated in
time by the global cold period from 1000 BC to 400 BC, would have discovered
and/or colonized Hawaii and reached North America by following the Kuro Shio
Current east from Japan as far as the coast of southern California. That both sets
of evidence for contact in these two periods are located to southern California confirms a Kuro Shio route and the soundness of our paradigm. The noted similarities
of the earlier pre-1000 BC single-piece curved shell Californian fishhooks with
Micronesian and Hawaiian equivalents and of the later two-piece bone fishhooks
found in southern California after AD 300 with Polynesian and, Atholl Anderson
suggests, also Japanese equivalents [7] mark the Kuro Shio route of diffusion in
both periods.
6.3 The Polynesian Chicken in America
Recently new evidence for prehistoric Polynesian contact with America has gained
worldwide attention. In June 2007 Storey et al. [8] provided evidence for the preColumbian presence of two Asian mitochondrial chicken lineages in America. The
authors claimed that some 50 chicken bones found at an archaeological site of
El Arenal-1 in Chile were of Polynesian origin. The radiocarbon date obtained
for the El Arenal chicken bone, in the calibrated age range of AD 1321–1407,
dated the presence of the Polynesian chicken in America to before the time of
Columbus. These two findings were used to discount the claim that the chicken was
introduced to America by the Spaniards. Comparison of the El Arenal bones with
2,000-year-old chicken bones from an archaeological site in Mele Havea in Tonga,
and of chicken bones from Fatu-ma-Futi in American Samoa, dating to about the
same period as the chickens of El Arenal, showed them to be genetically identical.
In addition the authors showed that
all ancient West Polynesian samples, early samples from Anakena, Easter Island and
Kualoa, Hawaii, and the El Arenal sample share a single unique point mutation (a T to
C transition) at site 214. One of the modern Araucan feather samples also shares this
unique mutation. Three other SNPs (all transitions) at sites 278, 303, and 339 are shared
6 Transoceanic Voyaging in the Pacific
Hawaii was still being used at this date. Southern California, we have suggested,
was the eastern terminus for that route.
Jones and Klar’s map of the distribution of sewn-plank boat construction shows
full sewn-plank construction for the Philippines, for the Caroline, Marshall, Gilbert
and Ellice Islands of Micronesia, for the New Hebrides, Fiji, the Marquesas and
Easter Island and New Zealand but only sewn on washstrakes or gunwhales in
Tonga, Samoa, Hawaii, the Society Islands and the Tuamotu. Their map suggests early distribution of the technology of full sewn-plank construction through
Micronesia and the loss of the technology in Hawaii following the southern incursions in about AD 1100. It suggests early knowledge of the technology in New
Zealand and Fiji.
The archaeological evidence for Polynesian contact with southern California
both before 1000 BC and after AD 300 thus fulfils the prediction inherent in our
paradigm that Spice Island explorers and/or colonists, in two waves separated in
time by the global cold period from 1000 BC to 400 BC, would have discovered
and/or colonized Hawaii and reached North America by following the Kuro Shio
Current east from Japan as far as the coast of southern California. That both sets
of evidence for contact in these two periods are located to southern California confirms a Kuro Shio route and the soundness of our paradigm. The noted similarities
of the earlier pre-1000 BC single-piece curved shell Californian fishhooks with
Micronesian and Hawaiian equivalents and of the later two-piece bone fishhooks
found in southern California after AD 300 with Polynesian and, Atholl Anderson
suggests, also Japanese equivalents [7] mark the Kuro Shio route of diffusion in
both periods.
6.3 The Polynesian Chicken in America
Recently new evidence for prehistoric Polynesian contact with America has gained
worldwide attention. In June 2007 Storey et al. [8] provided evidence for the preColumbian presence of two Asian mitochondrial chicken lineages in America. The
authors claimed that some 50 chicken bones found at an archaeological site of
El Arenal-1 in Chile were of Polynesian origin. The radiocarbon date obtained
for the El Arenal chicken bone, in the calibrated age range of AD 1321–1407,
dated the presence of the Polynesian chicken in America to before the time of
Columbus. These two findings were used to discount the claim that the chicken was
introduced to America by the Spaniards. Comparison of the El Arenal bones with
2,000-year-old chicken bones from an archaeological site in Mele Havea in Tonga,
and of chicken bones from Fatu-ma-Futi in American Samoa, dating to about the
same period as the chickens of El Arenal, showed them to be genetically identical.
In addition the authors showed that
all ancient West Polynesian samples, early samples from Anakena, Easter Island and
Kualoa, Hawaii, and the El Arenal sample share a single unique point mutation (a T to
C transition) at site 214. One of the modern Araucan feather samples also shares this
unique mutation. Three other SNPs (all transitions) at sites 278, 303, and 339 are shared