Actually, I believe, that, scenario 2 is more plausible. I find scenario 1 far-fetched. I also think, that, my Hawaiians reaching California scenario is far more plausible than your Taíno in Iceland scenario.
Why? It's highly probably the Polynesians did reach South America OTL, and if they never have a long pause in their voyages then they'd reach Rapa Nui thousands of years earlier, and from their Galapagos (even closer to South America). They've found evidence of Polynesian genes in one indigenous group in the Amazon, and given how many lineages died out in the Americas thanks to disease, colonialism, and indigenous imperialism (major empires like the Inca loved to relocate entire ethnic groups all over their empire), this is a significant find, which suggests to me that it isn't too implausible for the Taino or a similar group to engage in such expansion if given the time.
Every heard of Sami that prob why not honestly but honestly just because someone doesn’t look white doesn’t mean they are from Greenland just so many assumptions are being made here
Sami look typically "white" though, even discounting how many are mixed with Norwegians, Swedes, Finns, or Russians. Famous Sami folk singer
Mari Boine is (IIRC) full-blooded Sami, but if you looked at her without knowing that, you'd never assume that.
There's been a bit of a misunderstanding. I meant why would they need to develop better boat technology in the first place, when umiaks and kayaks are already very well suited to the traditional North American Arctic lifestyle? Sure they aren't good for long distance, but the pre-Inuit cultures didn't need long distance boats.
That's the challenge right there. You need a reason to innovate, and have said innovations spread. The biggest advantage to better boats would be making whaling safer and increasing access to whales. Of course, this requires better whaling equipment which IIRC was not common in the far north until the Thule. But there was innovation in the previous few thousand years further south amongst other indigenous groups, so if that could spread to the Saqqaq or other Paleo-Eskimo cultures, then they'd have one piece of what they need.
This comment exhibits an ignorance of Polynesian navigation. The Polynesians followed migratory birds, they used the stars to guide them, they used the oceans currents to tell when they were near an island, they made charts to help navigate, you get the idea. These "Atlantic Taíno" don't even know if there are any islands further out.
I know little about the Proto-Malagasy.
I'm well aware of that, but nobody would know that there's any islands north of the Marquesas simply based on that. By your logic they could have turned back and never found the Line Islands. And then the Line Islanders could have turned back and never found Hawaii.
Bermuda would be found the same way (and it was, but by the Spanish returning from the Caribbean). There's seabirds nearby, it follows the winds and ocean currents, and anyone trading regularly along the Bahamas and Eastern Seaboard would eventually find this out and sooner or later be forced into the unknown and at that point, why not try and see if there's anything out there? At 1,300 km from the Bahamas and 1,050 km from Cape Hatteras, it isn't too far away, and as you get close, they'd find they were near land.
The Azores are definitely a stretch, but they're only 2,000 km from Newfoundland. The Marianas were over 2,000 km from the nearest inhabited island, but were settled at that distance. A group on St. Pierre/Miquelon or even Sable Island might figure that out. It's more challenging than Iceland though, which would need to be settled from the southern tip of Greenland, and given the conditions of those areas, would need to be done during a warm period. Since we're working on limited time, we'd have Greenland and Iceland settled during the 1st-3rd centuries AD.