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.