Cultural History » polynesian http://www.scarcliff.com/cultural-history Thu, 13 Oct 2011 23:08:27 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Year Of The Lapita http://www.scarcliff.com/cultural-history/2007/12/year-of-the-lapita/ http://www.scarcliff.com/cultural-history/2007/12/year-of-the-lapita/#comments Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:27:49 +0000 Brent http://www.scarcliff.com/cultural-history/2007/12/year-of-the-lapita/ Continue reading →]]> There was no doubt about including in our 2007 Top Ten the discovery that chicken bones from ancient Polynesian sites in Tonga and Samoa and El Arenal, a Chilean site occupied between A.D. 700 and 1390, had identical DNA. The chicken was domesticated in Southeast Asia, but how it arrived in the New World before Europeans arrived was a mystery. Now it seems that Polynesian seafarers brought them, adding to the evidence for trans-Pacific contacts. The presence of South American sweet potatoes and bottle gourds on Pacific islands had already hinted at this, along with some (to my mind less convincing) evidence that complex fishhooks and sewn plank canoes used by southern California Indians had Polynesian origins.

Archaeology Story

]]> http://www.scarcliff.com/cultural-history/2007/12/year-of-the-lapita/feed/ 0 Polynesian Chickens In Chile http://www.scarcliff.com/cultural-history/2007/12/polynesian-chickens-in-chile/ http://www.scarcliff.com/cultural-history/2007/12/polynesian-chickens-in-chile/#comments Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:22:33 +0000 Brent http://www.scarcliff.com/cultural-history/2007/12/polynesian-chickens-in-chile/ Continue reading →]]> Scholars have long assumed the Spaniards first introduced chickens to the New World along with horses, pigs, and cattle. But now radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis of a chicken bone excavated from a site in Chile suggest Polynesians in oceangoing canoes brought chickens to the west coast of South America well before Europe’s “Age of Discovery.”

Archaeology Story

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