This is the Pacific Ocean. It covers over a third of the Earth's surface and is larger
than all the landmasses in the world...combined.
This 160km2 expanse is dotted with thousands of tiny islands.
Captain Cook, sailing around the region in the 17th century, found them all inhabited.
These people shared languages, cultures, and a love of navigation.
Spread thousands of miles across open ocean the Polynesians are history's greatest navigators.
But could they have discovered the Americas before Columbus?
And how is the second most beautiful thing on Earth, the potato, key to this story?
Let's find out.
_Intro_
Samoans, Tahitians, Tongans, Maori, Hawaiians, and many others live in the Polynesian Triangle.
but "Polynesian Elbow" is probably more accurate.
This "triangle" stretches from Hawaii in the North, to New Zealand in the South, and to
Rapa Nui in the East.
The currently accepted origin of the Polynesians is that they came out of Taiwan. Then moved
through South East Asia and Melanesia into Polynesia around 3000-1000 BC.
But the exact dates and routes are still debated.
The debate around the origins of the Polynesians was especially heated a few decades ago.
Which prompted Thor Heyerdahl to propose an interesting theory.
Thor
The awesomely named Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian adventurer.
In the mid 20th century he proposed that the Polynesian origin lay in America rather than
Asia.
His theory rested on the fact that the winds and currents made it easier to travel from
East to West in the Pacific.
Polynesian experts informed Heyerdahl that the linguistic, genetic, and archaeological
evidence all pointed toward Asia.
And that he definitely should not build a raft and attempt to drift from Peru to Polynesia
Thor built a raft and attempted to drift from Peru ( Callao ) to Polynesia on the 28th of
April 1947.
After a harrowing 100 day journey he and his crew made landfall in Raroia Reef on the 7th
of August.
Proving that it was possible for someone to drift from America to Polynesia. All other
evidence still pointed towards Asia.
Some years later (1956), Andrew Sharp, proposed that the Polynesians had settle all their
islands though accidental drift voyages.
A rebuttal to Sharp's thesis came in the form of an emerging technology, computers.
In 1973 Michael Levison, Gerard Ward, John W. Webb ran over 100,000 simulations of potential
Polynesian drift voyages.
They proved that drifting was near impossible. None of these simulated voyages managed to
land in Hawaii.
This meant one thing. The Polynesians intended to land and settle where they did.
Canoes
If intentional sailing is the only way the Polynesians could have spread out then how
on Earth did they do it?
The journey out of Asia happened in small boats and outrigger canoes. Canoes with a
second smaller hull for increased stability.
But for crossing the massive distances in remote Oceania something new was needed.
Enter, the double hulled canoe. In which the outrigger was replaced by a second hull.
A wooden deck was then constructed between the hulls to allow the canoes to carry more
crew and supplies.
These hulls were either dug out of massive logs using tools called adzes. Or constructed
from planks attached with coconut fibre ropes and sealed with sap from breadfruit trees.
I think now it's time to consider the coconut. The ships sails, coconut leaves.
The 300 metres of rope onboard, coconut fibres.
The drinks, coconut water. No coconut, no voyaging. This simple crop was essential.
Coconuts and canoes are impressive. But how did they discover and remember the locations
of hundreds of remote islands?
Without a compass or written language.
The exact designs of the canoes, the locations of the islands and the secrets of navigation
were entirely passed down through oral tradition, usually song.
In order to find their direction in the endless ocean Polynesian navigators had to main a
constant mental map of where they were in relation to the stars in the sky. This “Star
Compass” divided the sky into 32 "houses" and by watching these stars along with the
rising and setting sun the navigators could maintain their course with certainty.
If the stars could not be seen a navigator read the ocean.
The way in which a ocean swell rocked indicated where they were.
If they could orient their ship with the desired ocean swell then they knew where they were
going.
Following the flight paths of land nesting birds, watching for clouds over islands, and
by looking for the reflections of lagoons in the clouds, a navigator could figure out
if land was nearby.
Finally they used the “survival sailing strategy”.
Which is where Thor comes back into the mix.
The currents and winds made it easier to drift from America to Oceania. This doesn't prove
that Americans settled Polynesia though.
Instead it shows us how Polynesians felt safe sailing off into the unknown.
They would sail against this current for as long as they could in search of land. If none
could be found before supplies ran out then they allowed the currents to bring them back
home at a much quicker pace.
These theories and discoveries were tested in 1976. By a 19 metre long replica of the
ancient Polynesian voyaging canoe.
Named the Hokule'a.
At the time indigenous Pacific culture was near extinction, especially in places like
Hawaii.
There were less than a dozen master navigators left, none of them in Polynesia.
The people behind the Hokule'a wanted to sail in the traditional Polynesian way. To do that
they had to reach out to Mau Piailug, a master navigator from Satawal in Micronesia.
Mau was passionate about preserving his culture and making sure it survived into the modern
day.
He agreed to come aboard and navigate for the Hawaiians.
They sailed from Hawaii, 4226 kilometres to Tahiti using only traditional methods. Upon
their arrival the crew of the Hōkūle‘a were greeted in Pape’ete Harbour by over
half the island’s population.
17,000 people gathered in that harbour to watch their culture undergo a rebirth.
The culture of Polynesian wayfinding, thought dead for centuries had been reawaken by the
tiny crew aboard the Hōkūle‘a.
Soon the Hokula'a would go on more voyages to New Zealand, Rapa Nui, and even complete
a circumnavigation of the world.
Along with igniting a cultural renaissance in the Pacific these voyages along with Mau's
navigational knowledge proved that the ancient Polynesians were capable of long distance
voyaging using their own methods.
The advances in our knowledge about Polynesian navigation along with archaeology and experimental
archaeology like the Hokule‘a flipped Thor Heyerdahl’s theory on its head.
It seems more likely that the Polynesians were the ones that reached America.
Evidence
And this is where the potato enters our story.
The Sweet Potato is an American crop going back thousands of years.
It would not be introduced to Eurasia until after the voyages of Columbus. But it has
been central to the Polynesian diet for much longer.
The discovery and dating of carbonised sweet potato tubers on the Southern Cook Islands
(Hather and Kirch 1991; Kirch, ed., 2017) are evidence that the sweet potato was in
Polynesia no later than the end of the fourteenth century A.D.
Before European contact.
There are also samples of sweet potatoes radiocarbon dated to the precontact period in Hawaii and
New Zealand.
Given that the Polynesians reached Rapa Nui and that during the period between 900AD and
1100AD they were undergoing a rapid expansion it isn't too far fetched to assume that they
may have reached Peru, traded with the natives there, and brought back some crops.
Especially after Thor proved how easy it was to return from Peru to Polynesia.
Along with the physical evidence there is also some linguistic evidence. The word for
Sweet Potato in Quechua is kumar. Across Polynesia the word for Sweet Potato is oddly similar,
with kumara and kumala being the most common. (show list, kumara)
The bottle gourd, a vital part of Uruguayan and Argentine life also seems to have made
it's way across the Pacific and into Polynesian life pre-European contact.
Together with this physical and linguistic evidence there is also a tiny amount of genetic
evidence.
Authors of a genetic study published in the journal Current Biology found that it wasn't
only Polynesians that inhabited Rapa Nui.
Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas, a geneticist at the Center for GeoGenetics at the University of
Copenhagen stated "We found evidence of gene flow between this population and Native American
populations, suggesting an ancient ocean migration route between Polynesia and the Americas "
Genetic data from 27 of the island's Polynesian inhabitants showed interbreeding with South
American natives somewhere between 1300 and 1500.
Conclusion
The growing consensus among experts on Polynesia is that they contacted the Americans before
Columbus. They had the technology, ability, and will to cross the Pacific with ease. Right
now all we are waiting for is for incontrovertible evidence to appear. Because even the potato
isn't enough to absolutely prove contact.
The story of the Polynesians is an incredible one.
They, powered by the human spirit for discovery and adventure, populated over 1,000 islands
and created Earth’s largest nation, covering some 41 million km2 of ocean during a period
where European and Asian sailors were hugging the coastline.
When Captain Cook first entered their realm he asked “How shall we account for this
Nation spreading it self so far over this Vast ocean?”.
The hard work of Mau, the Polynesians, and an array of scientists and archaeologists
has in recent years answered this question, it's only a matter of time until the American
question is answered as well.
Thank you for watching this video. It is a part of the fantastic Operation Odysseus Collaboration.
Please follow the link in the description to check out the entire playlist and you can
continue on from my video and watch the videos by History With Hilbert, Brandon F, and Mr
Beat, which will be covering a similar time period. Enjoy.