8.4 Estimating the Frequency of Transpacific Voyages
143
have taken considerable horticultural skill on the part of the traders choosing plants
in America.
We note that although Sorenson and Johannessen offer no suggestion as to which
traders brought the American plants to India, they independently conclude that a
large number of voyages to America would have been needed to bring the cited
plants to India:
The data in this book show that as many as 50 species of plants definitely, or very possibly,
were transferred between the American tropics and India, or vice versa, before Columbus’
day. While we cannot tell how many voyages this long process involved, there must have
been several score – or maybe several hundred – stretched over millennia (Part One, p. 69).
The question of voyaging frequency demands some consideration of the practical implications of maintaining the persistent maritime trade contact with America
(by whomsoever was responsible for the trade) that is suggested by the Indian data.
Trading with America would have demanded considerable knowledge and experience on the part of the traders. They would have needed established contacts
in America to help them access suitable plants especially where plants were not
coastal; contacts with whom they could organize trading exchanges and who could
secure future orders for the items they were trading to America; knowledge of safe
harbours and coastal hazards; knowledge of protocols for dealing with different
tribes or with appropriate members of urban hierarchies. This kind of necessary
practical knowledge and experience could more readily be passed on from experienced traders to “apprentices” in the trade if the apprentices accompanied them on
a voyage to acquire experience at first hand. We are not talking once-a-generation
voyages. At least two voyages per generation – say every 12 or 15 years – might be
needed to account for the persistence of contact that is implicit in the Indian archaeological evidence for the spread of plant introductions in the period of greatest plant
trading from 400 BC to AD 800.
The scenario we are proposing suggests, then, a frequency of transpacific voyaging far greater than that implicit in the Californian archaeological data of one
late first-wave voyage and of one or two late second-wave voyages. The Indian data
provides a richer evidence domain for assessing the timings, frequency and range
of transoceanic contact. It is not irrelevant that the plant trade to India would have
involved voyaging in two oceans. Both during the last Ice Age and after the drowning of Sundaland, Spice Island traders had been able to exploit the pivotal position
of their archipelago with access to two oceans and access to two regions with very
different biologies. We have suggested that it is hardly coincidental that Wallacea
with access to both biological regions was a major centre for early plant and animal
domestication. Nor that the Spice Islanders’ role in plant translocation may have
continued once crossing the Pacific opened up a new biological region for them to
exploit. As we saw in Chapter 7, Spice Islanders could bring to the role of plant
trading a horticultural sophistication and awareness honed through a long history
engaged in genetic modifications both of plants and animals in Wallacea.
The evidence Jett summarizes for persistent Chinese cultural, artistic and technological influence on the major prehistoric American civilizations challenges the
143
have taken considerable horticultural skill on the part of the traders choosing plants
in America.
We note that although Sorenson and Johannessen offer no suggestion as to which
traders brought the American plants to India, they independently conclude that a
large number of voyages to America would have been needed to bring the cited
plants to India:
The data in this book show that as many as 50 species of plants definitely, or very possibly,
were transferred between the American tropics and India, or vice versa, before Columbus’
day. While we cannot tell how many voyages this long process involved, there must have
been several score – or maybe several hundred – stretched over millennia (Part One, p. 69).
The question of voyaging frequency demands some consideration of the practical implications of maintaining the persistent maritime trade contact with America
(by whomsoever was responsible for the trade) that is suggested by the Indian data.
Trading with America would have demanded considerable knowledge and experience on the part of the traders. They would have needed established contacts
in America to help them access suitable plants especially where plants were not
coastal; contacts with whom they could organize trading exchanges and who could
secure future orders for the items they were trading to America; knowledge of safe
harbours and coastal hazards; knowledge of protocols for dealing with different
tribes or with appropriate members of urban hierarchies. This kind of necessary
practical knowledge and experience could more readily be passed on from experienced traders to “apprentices” in the trade if the apprentices accompanied them on
a voyage to acquire experience at first hand. We are not talking once-a-generation
voyages. At least two voyages per generation – say every 12 or 15 years – might be
needed to account for the persistence of contact that is implicit in the Indian archaeological evidence for the spread of plant introductions in the period of greatest plant
trading from 400 BC to AD 800.
The scenario we are proposing suggests, then, a frequency of transpacific voyaging far greater than that implicit in the Californian archaeological data of one
late first-wave voyage and of one or two late second-wave voyages. The Indian data
provides a richer evidence domain for assessing the timings, frequency and range
of transoceanic contact. It is not irrelevant that the plant trade to India would have
involved voyaging in two oceans. Both during the last Ice Age and after the drowning of Sundaland, Spice Island traders had been able to exploit the pivotal position
of their archipelago with access to two oceans and access to two regions with very
different biologies. We have suggested that it is hardly coincidental that Wallacea
with access to both biological regions was a major centre for early plant and animal
domestication. Nor that the Spice Islanders’ role in plant translocation may have
continued once crossing the Pacific opened up a new biological region for them to
exploit. As we saw in Chapter 7, Spice Islanders could bring to the role of plant
trading a horticultural sophistication and awareness honed through a long history
engaged in genetic modifications both of plants and animals in Wallacea.
The evidence Jett summarizes for persistent Chinese cultural, artistic and technological influence on the major prehistoric American civilizations challenges the