this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2024
358 points (95.9% liked)

Science Memes

10271 readers
2732 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.


Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Hasn't it been proven that eastern polynesians have amerindian DNA, and also that their word for their crops of sweet potatoes is related to the Quechua word for similar crops still in south america?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah in 1200-1300 not 700AD, but there is some evidence of eariler voyages to South America and Antarctica

Also the DNA is the other way around and also a coin flip as to whether it came from Madagascan slaves after the slave trade or from Polynesians hundreds of years earlier, and the sweet potato is also not hard evidence as it could be coincidence, and there is some evidence of it having spread earlier

However oral history is quite strong in Polynesia and for whatever reason there's no stories of large landmasses to the east, only icy ones to the south

Essentially there's no hard proof like there is with Leif Erikson and Columbus as it was at most a couple of accidental crossings which may not have even been return journeys, but there is a lot of evidence that suggests there was contact of some sort or another

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

IIRC the oral history could be explained, in that the folks on Rapa Nui were actually not the ones sailing to South America, it was actually the other way around.

Were that the case then South America wouldn't necessarily be documented in an oral history, just visitors from a far away land.