Polynesian settlement in South America?

There are theories that in the early 1000's-millennium the Polynesians made contact with the indigenous peoples of South Americas, on grounds that the sweet potato is a native of South America but also present in Polynesian cooking, and that the Proto-Polynesian word for sweet potato, *kumala, stems from Quechua k’umar.

To those who accept these theories, the Polynesians never actually settled in South America. They only engaged in limited contact on some islands off the coast of Chile. What if the Polynesians actually settled on and expanded on the South American continent? Was it possible? What would this change in South America? I also wonder if settlement farther north near Peru could have interesting butterflies for the Inca Empire.
 
IMO-the best chance for Polynesian settlement in "South America" is Polynesian settlement in the Galapagos. At least some of the Galapagos islands can support their crop package, while the Chiloe archipelago is too cold for bananas and sugarcane. The islands (at least at initial settlement) would be full of dumb, slow, tasty animals but no human neighbors who might decide to murder you. In other words, the exact sort of land that Polynesians loved to colonize.

From the Galapagos, the Polynesians could maintain contact with South America. The coast of Ecuador could be an excellent source of timber, allowing the Galapagans to continue making long oceanic voyages even after the rest of Polynesia has given up on that. They could trade goods such as tortoiseshell and seal fur in exchange for tools on the mainland, and possibly become a middleman minority between South and Mesoamerica.

Once introduced to South America, the banana could be as transformative as it was in Africa, allowing population growth in tropical areas. While the Galapagans might introduce chickens, I'm not sure they would bring pigs to the Galapagos. Why bring livestock when there's such easily hunted food, and the voyage is so long? Like the Pitcairn islanders or the Maori, I think they would leave pigs behind.
 
I'd say chickens are definitely safe for introduction, considering that if memory serves they did end up spreading chickens to the New World in the same instance that they got sweet potatoes from it.

Almost happy that they wouldn't be bringing in pigs in all likelihood. The Galapagos don't deserve the devastation that pigs bring to ecosystems.
 
I'd say chickens are definitely safe for introduction, considering that if memory serves they did end up spreading chickens to the New World in the same instance that they got sweet potatoes from it.

Almost happy that they wouldn't be bringing in pigs in all likelihood. The Galapagos don't deserve the devastation that pigs bring to ecosystems.

If I believe correctly the chicken hypothesis has been largely debunked, or at least less convincing than the sweet potato hypothesis.

Also what I'm looking for is settlement and expansion in to the mainland, if that is possible.
 
Also what I'm looking for is settlement and expansion in to the mainland, if that is possible.

Settlement, yes. I can see Polynesians setting up at river mouths and beaches between the equator and Mexico.

Expansion, I don't see. Expansion will require long-term war against entrenched Native groups, and I don't see the Polynesians having a technological advantage on land. Neither will they have the advantage of germs that Europeans had. And while they did have kingdoms, and did take on wars of conquest, I don't see any Polynesian polity having the organization necessary to sustain a prolonged war of conquest and settlement over hundreds of miles against an armed and determined foe.
 
Maybe they could fill in as traders with piracy on the side. After all the Haida were raiding as far south as Mexico so imagine the havoc that the Polynesians with their catamarans could bring.
 
There was a study last year which suggested that Native Americans were filtering back to Easter Island before European contact. There's also evidence of even weirder genetic connections. It seems likely there was some level of Polynesian settlement in South America, but it wasn't enough for the settlers to continue as a distinct people. Not surprising, given they didn't have superior technology to the natives (aside from watercraft, which wasn't relevant past the coast) and neither introduced plagues nor were resistant to them like Europeans.
 
What would help is if there was a huge population boom in Oceania necessitating a migratory push among Polynesians,Melanesians and Micronesians. And if somehow the Polynesians would quit warring amongst themselves and unite in a single force.
 
What would help is if there was a huge population boom in Oceania necessitating a migratory push among Polynesians,Melanesians and Micronesians. And if somehow the Polynesians would quit warring amongst themselves and unite in a single force.

I feel that the above scenario is highly unlikely for multiple very good reasons-separation of languages and culture, limitations of geography, the option of spreading to empty land like New Zealand (or the Galapagos!) instead of a mad invasion of inhabited land, etc.

If you really, really want Polynesian expansion in the continental Americas...perhaps a scenario like the attempted Polynesian expansion into Australia in my timeline? Essentially, if a Polynesian settlement did have pigs, then those pigs could cause an environmental disaster that would weaken the local Native American groups and give the Polynesian settlers some breathing space. Charles Mann suggests a similar scenario for OTL in his book 1493, saying that introduced pigs destroyed Native American emergency food sources such as tuckahoe and therefore prevented them from organizing a successful military campaign against Jamestown.
 

Driftless

Donor
I'd say chickens are definitely safe for introduction, considering that if memory serves they did end up spreading chickens to the New World in the same instance that they got sweet potatoes from it.

Almost happy that they wouldn't be bringing in pigs in all likelihood. The Galapagos don't deserve the devastation that pigs bring to ecosystems.

If I believe correctly the chicken hypothesis has been largely debunked, or at least less convincing than the sweet potato hypothesis.

If the Polynesians understood chicken agriculture, couldn't they adapt local analog birds to the practice? They don't bring the birds with them, but their knowledge of how to raise and maintain them. Maybe there's no chicken stand-in in the Galapagos, but there must be another adaptable bird on the west coast of South or Central America?
 
If the Polynesians understood chicken agriculture, couldn't they adapt local analog birds to the practice? They don't bring the birds with them, but their knowledge of how to raise and maintain them. Maybe there's no chicken stand-in in the Galapagos, but there must be another adaptable bird on the west coast of South or Central America?

Guinea pigs on the South American coast, and of course turkeys further north on the Mesoamerican coast.
 
IMO-the best chance for Polynesian settlement in "South America" is Polynesian settlement in the Galapagos. At least some of the Galapagos islands can support their crop package, while the Chiloe archipelago is too cold for bananas and sugarcane.

Just a thought...the Chiloe Archipelago is about the same latitude as the South Island of NZ. The ability to cultivate sweet potato was limited to the northern part of the North Island, but that did not hinder expansion to the South Island or as far as the Chatham Islands (around 1500) east of the South Island.

Considering the abundance of fish and shellfish in the Chiloe it might be reasonable as a settlement location.

The Galapagos are about 3300 miles from the nearest major Polynesian centers at Hiva Oa or Mangareva, but only about 2900 from Pitcairn and 2200 from Rapa Nui. Chiloe, on the other hand is about 2300 miles from Rapa Nui, 3300 from Pitcairn and over 4000 miles from Chatham.

Pitcairn was uninhabited by 1606. It is believed that exhausted resources led to the failure of trade with Mangareva and other islands and the population died out.

It might be possible for the Polynesians to reach Chiloe due to the South Pacific currents but the timing would probably be no earlier than the 1500s.
 
Considering the abundance of fish and shellfish in the Chiloe it might be reasonable as a settlement location.

That's a good point, but what about the Mapuche or pre-Mapuche people that the settlers might encounter? While their greater oceangoing abilities might allow Polynesians to look for food away from the Indians' stomping grounds, there's still possibility for conflict and one well-executed raid would be all that's necessary to keep wipe the Polynesian settlers off the map.
 
Anthropologists are skeptical about way early dates BOTH because it goes against currently accepted theories AND because some previous claims haven't held up.

With that said, there's something about a Monte Verde in present day Chile which looks like it had a settlement about 12,500 years ago, which is about a thousand years earlier than most Clovis culture settlements. And near Mount Verde there's a site which might be even older. Now, on this one, note the above and buyer beware.
 
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Archaeology Archive, Oct. 18, 1999.

Monte Verde Under Fire

The validity of the earliest site in the Americas is called into question.


"Because some knotted cordage and other perishables at Monte Verde were very fragile, stuck to wooden poles or stakes, and overlaid by a sticky peat lens, we had to submerge them in chemical baths in order to preserve them and to loosen them from the adhering peat. Many other less fragile organic materials, such as wooden tools and chunks of charcoal in hearths, were thus chosen for dating."

http://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/clovis/
And see also the list of other possible early sites at the beginning of the article.

And of course archaeologists argue among themselves. The critic gets his or her ego involved. The original researchers have a lot of ego invested. And so it goes. Pretty much like any profession.

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I have previously read that there were other pre-Clovis cultures south of Alaska, but that Clovis was the first really widely spread-out culture. And they probably owed much of their success to driving off and in some cases killing persons in other cultures. That is, 'ethnic cleansing' is a new name to a very old practice, but not universal, not even among quote 'successful' cultures.
 
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