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Home , Polynesia, Thor Heyerdahl, Tiki

NEWSFOCUS Beyond Kon-Tiki: Did to ?

After decades of taboo and controversy, Pacifi c Rim archaeologists are fi nding new evidence that Polynesians reached South America before Europeans did, voyaging across the world’s largest around 1200 C.E. on March 12, 2012

IT WAS LATE IN THE DAY IN DECEMBER 2007 drive to settle a long-standing controversy to crumble, giving archaeologists a chance when the curator pulled out a half-dozen among archaeologists and anthropologists. to rethink the way technology and innova- ancient human skulls from dusty drawers Considered the realm of crackpot theorists tions spread in . in the in Concepción, . The until recently, the idea of prehistoric contact skulls, of varying ages, had been found dur- between Polynesians and South Americans Heyerdahl’s ghost www.sciencemag.org ing the past century by locals as well as sci- has gone mainstream. A new generation of The idea that Polynesians and South Ameri- entists on the windswept of Mocha, researchers is using DNA analysis of varied cans were in touch more than 500 years ago 30 kilometers off the southern Chilean coast. organisms such as humans, , and is as old as archaeology itself. In 1837, a “I nearly dropped to the fl oor,” recalls Lisa sweet potatoes to add compelling data to a French writer noted that plank boats used Matisoo-Smith, a biological anthropologist case previously based on more nebulous lin- by locals on the west coast of Chile were at the University of Otago in . guistic and artifact similarities. Given current remarkably similar to those found in . She immediately noticed that some crania views of Polynesian expansion (see sidebar, Two years later, a British captain pointed had characteristics hinting at a Polynesian p. 1346), many researchers now think it likely out that the Patagonian and Polynesian words Downloaded from origin, such as a pentagonal shape when that Polynesians reached South America for —kialu and kialoa, respectively— viewed from behind. by about 1200 C.E., after the settlement of were nearly the same, notes Kathryn Klar, a Mocha is 3700 , and several centuries before linguist at the University of California (UC), Online kilometers east of Eas- Europeans arrived around 1500 C.E. Berkeley. An archaeologist suggested in the sciencemag.org ter Island, the clos- “This is a watershed moment,” archae- 1930s that the diffused from Podcast interview est known prehistoric ologist James Bayman of the University of its home in the to the Pacifi c before with author Polynesian settlement. , Manoa, told participants at a ses- Columbus. And researchers at a 1968 con- Andrew Lawler. Matisoo-Smith was in sion on the topic at the meeting of the Soci- ference concluded that the pre-Columbian Chile on a hunt for rat ety for American Archaeologists (SAA) in presence in of indigenous South bones that might show Polynesian contact St. Louis, Missouri, in April. “New methods American plants like the sweet potato were with South America; she hadn’t imagined no longer give us an excuse to ignore the likely signs of prehistoric contact. stumbling on human remains that might issue.” Some skeptics point out that there is There is no question that the Polynesians bolster that case. She and Chilean colleague still no incontrovertible evidence that Poly- were the great premodern seafarers, spread- José-Miguel Ramírez-Aliaga of the Univer- nesians went to South America and then ing east from and in outrig- sidad de Valparaiso hope to win agreement returned to Pacifi c , and contact with ger canoes and arriving on the shores of from local peoples and the Chilean govern- America remains questionable (see by 1000 B.C.E. (Science, 2 March 2001, ment for an excavation on Mocha to seek sidebar, p. 1347). Bayman admits that the p. 1735). By 1200 C.E., using and signs of Polynesian settlement, artifacts, research “is still a work in progress.” But he sophisticated techniques, they and human and animal remains. and many colleagues agree that resistance had peopled most South Pacific islands,

Their effort is one part of an ambitious to the idea of prehistoric contact is starting including Hawaii and Easter Island on the BAY/CORBIS DE PHILIP CREDIT:

1344 11 JUNE 2010 VOL 328 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org Published by AAAS NEWSFOCUS

Seaworthy. The reach of Polynesians, shown here in this 18th century engraving, may have extended as as South America.

eastern edge of the Pacifi c. But did they go all the way to South America? Scientists largely blame , the famous Norwegian writer and adven- turer, for souring academia on that idea. In 1947, Heyerdahl and a crew of five sailed nearly 7000 kilometers from to on a balsa-wood raft dubbed the Kon-Tiki to prove that ancient Americans could have sailed east to colo- nize the Pacifi c. The trip and resulting book . Ramírez-Aliaga made him a worldwide celebrity. Heyerdahl (right) notes that Ma¯ori hand thought that the original seafarers came clubs (top row) resemble Mapu- from the via South America, che versions from Chile. where they bestowed civilization on dark- skinned peoples before setting off across in the uplands of Peru, where it became genetic tools are clinching the argument the world’s largest ocean. an important staple, according to Andrew that sweet potatoes were brought to Pacifi c Such racist assumptions and a lack of sci- Clarke, a molecular biologist at the Uni- islands before the advent of Europeans. “It entifi c rigor horrifi ed many anthropologists versity of Otago. Unlike the or is easy to spot changes in the sweet potato and tarred researchers who wanted to exam- the gourd, which can naturally fl oat from genome over time,” explains Clarke, who ine such prehistoric long-distance connec- island to island, “the sweet potato needs presented some of his data at the SAA meet- on March 12, 2012 tions more thoroughly. “People asked me if I people” to spread, he says. Some scholars ing. That’s because his team of research- wanted to ruin my career and be considered in the past argued that the sweet potato was ers from New Zealand and is using a a fool,” recalls Terry Jones, now a professor exported to by the Spanish high-resolution molecular marker technique at California Polytechnic State University in and Portuguese in post-Columbian times, to illuminate the large amount of genetic San Luis Obispo. The topic is still contro- then spread east across the Pacific. But variation found in the plant. They examined versial, though no longer taboo. “We have to the tuber, still a mainstay of the Polyne- 300 samples collected from around Ocea- tiptoe back and reexamine just what the con- sian diet, has shown up frequently in much nia, South America, and Southeast Asia and nections are,” says archaeologist Terry Hunt earlier Pacifi c sites. Patrick Kirch of UC found that the varieties common in Polyne- www.sciencemag.org of the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Berkeley, for example, dated a carbonized sia differ from those brought by Europeans The most compelling evidence, schol- sample from the northeast of to Southeast Asia; the Polynesian varieties ars say, centers on the humble sweet potato. New Zealand at about 1000 C.E. are more directly related to the South Amer- That tuber is widely recognized to have been Such ancient samples have been known ican ones, Clarke says, strongly suggesting

CREDITS (TOP TO BOTTOM): COURTESY J.-M. RAMÍREZ-ALIAGA (2); J.-M.ADAPTEDGOOGLEMAPS RAMÍREZ-ALIAGA FROM COURTESY CREDITS BOTTOM): (TOP TO domesticated only once, about 6000 B.C.E. for decades but received little attention. Now prehistoric contact.

Chicken feed

POLYNESIAN DIASPORA Just how a highland Andes crop Downloaded from Hawaii appeared in Polynesia in pre-Columbian times remains controversial. “The sweet potato shows movement from South America to Polynesia, but not how it hap- Quito pened or who was involved,” says Atholl Guayaquil Solomon Anderson, an archaeologist at the Aus- Islands Marquesas tralian National University in . Islands Lima Given the crop’s highland origin and Fiji Cook Tahiti the prevailing winds, he argues that it is Islands more likely that Amerindians dispersed the tuber to Pacifi c islands, moving west Easter Island as Heyerdahl had proposed. Santiago But most researchers see few signs Concepción of Amerindian excursions into the New Zealand Pacifi c. Cultural anthropologist Richard Scaglion of the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania instead argues that Poly- nesians may have arrived at the southern coast of South America and sailed north using the prevailing current to the Ecua-

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dorian port of Guayaquil, the only sheltered Polynesians celebrated the port in South America north of the rocky New Year with the rising of southern coast of Chile. The Canara people the Pleiades after the winter once lived from this area of the coast into the solstice and used a magic toki Andes highlands, making the sweet potato to cut trees. Both play a game accessible to coastal visitors. And here the similar to field hockey, pai current veers sharply west. Computer simu- pai in the and lations show that “the most successful return palin in Mapuche. [westward] from the coast would be from Despite the sweet pota- Guayaquil to Polynesia,” Scaglion adds, to’s strong evidence, so far making this area “a possible locus of trans- there is no evidence for other Pacifi c contact.” common Polynesian ani- Climate change may also have played a mals, like the and rat, role in prehistoric contact. Heyerdahl argued in South America. But there that South Americans went west to colonize are signs of pre-Columbian Polynesia in part because the winds at mid- chickens. Domesticated in latitudes blow from east to west. But paleo- Southeast Asia, the climatic data from a 2002 study suggest that spread to and was prolonged El Niño events reversed those Land ho. Mocha Island is drawing the interest of archaeologists thought to have arrived in winds around 1000 C.E., providing a win- seeking Polynesian remains in South America. the with Colum- dow for Polynesians to voyage more easily bus. Then in 2007, a team to the South American coast. “The change and including the area near Mocha Island, led by Alice Storey of the University of in winds enabled them to go in new direc- are strongly reminiscent of Polynesia. Pol- in Armidale, , dated tions,” says Hunt. ished stone hand clubs, wide at one end with three chicken bones from El Arenal in Chile, Archaeological evidence for Polynesians a rounded short handle, look like wooden about 100 kilometers from Mocha Island, on March 12, 2012 in the area around Guayaquil—or anywhere clubs used by the Ma¯ori people of New Zea- to between 1300 C.E. and 1450 C.E. The else in South America—remains elusive. land, who are of Polynesian descent. Stone claim grabbed headlines around the world. But researchers note intriguing similari- clubs from the off New But geneticist Jaime Gongora of the ties between objects found along the coast Zealand’s eastern coast also look similar to University of Sydney in Australia isn’t and those of a similar vintage common on another Mapuche type; both resemble styl- convinced by those few bones, saying that distant Pacifi c islands. Some, such as stone ized . And a Mapuche stone ax called a “a large number of specimens” need to be fi sh weirs or fi sh hooks, could have evolved toki—the same word is used in Polynesia— found and dated in independent laborato- similar shapes independently, says Ramírez- resembles used in Polynesia. ries to ensure reliable radiocarbon results. www.sciencemag.org Aliaga. But other artifacts from the Mapu- Some cultural traditions are also surpris- Storey says that she has new data that will che culture, centered on south-central Chile ingly similar. Both the Mapuche and the soon be ready for publication.

Changing Time in the South Pacifi c Manoa, and the reliable dates are all later. Hunt argues that a host of early dates depend on carbonized remains found in sediment cores that “When this comes to be prov’d we Shall be no longer at a loss to know could be the result of natural rather than humanmade fi res or were done how the Islands lying in those came to be people’d … so we may on driftwood, which could be centuries earlier than the people who used Downloaded from trace them from Island to Island quite to the East .” it. After carefully examining more than 1000 radiocarbon dates, Hunt –, 1769 believes that Polynesians may have reached East Polynesia sometime after 1000 C.E., in “an explosive dispersal” that extended to Easter Little did British explorer James Cook know that the question of when and Island, Hawaii, and possibly the coast of South America (see main text, how the Polynesians peopled the Pacifi c would still be a hot topic more p. 1344). It was “the most rapid phase of human expansion in world pre- than 2 centuries later. Most archaeologists now agree that Polynesians ,” he says. can trace their origins to the , a fusion of Melanesian and Not everyone is willing to let go of the longer chronology. Marshall that had spread as far east as Fiji by 1000 B.C.E. Weisler, an archaeologist at the University of in Brisbane, Aus- But archaeologists are deeply at odds over when Polynesians fanned out tralia, complains that “there are pre–1200 C.E. dates for several island across the vast northern, central, and eastern Pacifi c Ocean. groups that are routinely ignored or dismissed by the short-chronology One group favors a slower and earlier settlement that puts them on folks.” Many scientists, however, seem to be drifting in Hunt’s direction. Hawaii as early as 500 C.E., while another argues that it wasn’t until “Increasingly, there is evidence for a rapid radiation around 1000 C.E.,” 1200 C.E. that most of the far-fl ung islands were colonized. For the says Patrick Kirch of the University of California, Berkeley. moment, those who argue for a swift and late settlement seem to have The key may lie in the Society Islands, which likely were an important the upper hand. “But this is going to be a hard issue to resolve,” says point for Polynesian dispersal north to Hawaii and east as far as Easter archaeologist Terry Jones of the California Polytechnic State University Island and possibly South America. Two domesticated from the in San Luis Obispo. islands date to 600 C.E., but the earliest settlement appears to be centu- Many of the early samples collected during the ries later. That ambiguity is a sign that archaeologists have more work to past 6 decades are suspect, says Terry Hunt of the University of Hawaii, do before Cook’s musing can be defi nitively answered. –A.L. CREDIT: MARIO HAHN CREDIT:

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Northern Exposure in Doubt

In the 1930s, famed anthropologist Alfred Kroeber noted that the Chumash Indians of South- ern California made sophisticated sewn-plank boats remarkably like those constructed in Contact clues. This Hawaii more than 4000 kilometers to the west. He suggested prehistoric Polynesian contact chicken and as the source of the Chumash technique. Now an archaeologist and a linguist are seeking to these New Zealand sweet prove that old theory. But while researchers are making strides in demonstrating a connec- potatoes (below) may be leg- tion between South America and Polynesia (see main text, p. 1344), the idea that California acies of Polynesian contact Indians learned from Hawaiians faces an uphill struggle. Questions about timing make many with South America. archaeologists skeptical. The sewn-plank boats built by the Chumash reached more than 8 meters in length and could carry a dozen people, shuttling between the California coast and the , 30 kilometers offshore. Although smaller than the oceangoing boats built by Polynesians, they surpassed the technology of all other natives along the North American coast prior to the arrival of Europeans. The fi rst hard evidence for the Chumash vessels appears circa 700 C.E., around the time that some say Polynesians were settling the central and eastern Pacifi c. Terry Jones, an archaeologist at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, believes that the appearance of the boats as well as Polynesian-style fi shhooks in the same era provides convincing evidence for contact. And some linguistic evidence backs up that view. His collaborator Kathryn Klar, a linguist at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, has cataloged several Chumash words, including tomolo—the word for —that appear to be closely related to . Fiction to fact? Woodworking terms are also similar. Sweet potato and chicken data will likely not But others aren’t yet convinced. For on March 12, 2012 be enough to convince skeptics. “We should example, it’s possible those words are not be pursuing other lines of evidence,” such ancient and arrived with Europeans who as Polynesian settlements in South Amer- had traveled in the Pacific in the 18th ica and ancient DNA, says Hawaii’s Hunt. and 19th centuries. “Corned beef in a “Human evidence would be the key.” can has an indigenous Polynesian name,” The skulls that Matisoo-Smith examined archaeologist Terry Hunt of the Univer- in Concepción provide intriguing hints of sity of Hawaii, Manoa, points out. And Polynesian ancestry. But DNA data would an increasingly infl uential group argues www.sciencemag.org be more conclusive, and to date, few studies that Polynesians didn’t arrive in the east- have sought Polynesian genetic markers in ern Pacifi c until 1000 C.E. (see sidebar, modern South Americans. Analyses of mito- p. 1346), which would make the earlier Tech transfer? Researchers debate whether this chondrial DNA in indigenous South Amer- Chumash innovation necessarily indig- ancient sewn-plank canoe design from California icans so far show no sign of a Polynesian enous. “If they don’t arrive by 700 A.D., is the result of Polynesian infl uence. incursion, says Matisoo-Smith. If contacts then it doesn’t fi t,” says Patrick Kirch of were minimal, those markers may be hard to UC Berkeley. Jeanne Arnold of UC Los Angeles adds that there is “zero archaeology for a fi nd in living people. And because people of Polynesian incursion” in . Finding Polynesian artifacts “would be wonderful,” Downloaded from Polynesian ancestry settled in South Amer- Arnold says. “But I want to see the evidence.” –A.L. ica after Europeans arrived, researchers will need to look at DNA from ancient South Americans. Given that most prehistoric The work by young researchers like Clarke, away from native American groups,” says voyagers were likely male, scientists say they Storey, and Matisoo-Smith is a sign that the Matisoo-Smith. need uncontaminated nuclear DNA from an taboo put in place a half-century ago in the Skeptics like Anderson and Gongora archaeological site in order to pinpoint the wake of Kon-Tiki has lost its power. Clarke, insist that much more data is necessary before Y chromosomes of a Polynesian. for example, is eager to push on to study the they will accept the idea of seafaring Polyne- Mocha so far is the best candidate for bottle gourd, the tomato, soapberry, the coco- sians trading with ancient South Americans, such evidence and for signs of a Polynesian nut, and other plants that may have moved and that scenario remains for now absent settlement on the . “A wider exca- across the Pacific before European from world-history textbooks. Bayman cau- vation will allow us to look for the settle- arrived. But that work still holds little interest tions that overthrowing entrenched views ment pattern, more burials, and of course to most scholars who focus on the Americas. will require additional lines of decisive evi- more artifacts” from any Polynesian col- “There’s been a glass wall separating the two dence. But many Pacifi c Rim scientists say ony, says Hunt. But fi rst the team is work- ,” says Hawaii’s Bayman. it is only a matter of time before a once- ing with Mapuche leaders, the New Zealand That is changing, says Ramírez-Aliaga, heretical notion becomes accepted wisdom. embassy, and the Chilean government to who experiences less resistance among his “When you put all of it together, I don’t see take into account sensitivities among indig- South American colleagues to the idea of how you can interpret this any other way,” enous peoples in the Americas about archae- contact than in the past. Trade clearly was says Jones. “This is moving from compel-

CREDITS (TOP TO BOTTOM): WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; JAMES SHOOK/WIKIPEDIA; COURTESY OF TERRY L. JONES TERRY OF WIKIMEDIAJAMES CREDITS TO BOTTOM): COMMONS; SHOOK/WIKIPEDIA; COURTESY (TOP ological digs. a two-way street, “so this takes nothing ling to accepted truth.” –ANDREW LAWLER

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