WI: Empty Lands

I'm not sure how far South you'd have to go in Chile for it to get like that.

At 40 degrees South you'll certainly get something like that. (I've been there, it's quite similar to the western part of Argentine Patagonia). And possibly also much futher North.

And if you go too far south the Ocean currents are too unfavourable get there, let along return home to tell potential settlers.

Yes, it'll be quite hard to return. There's evicence of chicken bones (at least according to the article I read), but we don't know if the ones who brought them to chile were able to return. That certainly will be an issue.

The evience of polynesian visitors is mostly from Peru. I'd like to see where you read about the chicken bones in Southern Chile though, is it on the internet?

Well, I once posted an article on the New York Times about this. (Not the most reliable source on historical matters, i know) The link doesn't lead to the article any longer, but this was the first part:

"First Chickens in Americas Were Brought From Polynesia

Why did the chicken cross the Pacific Ocean? To get to the other side, in South America. How? By Polynesian canoes, which apparently arrived at least 100 years before Europeans settled the continent.
That is the conclusion of an international research team, which reported yesterday that it had found “the first unequivocal evidence for a pre-European introduction of chickens to South America,” or presumably anywhere in the New World.
The researchers said that bones buried on the South American coast were from chickens that lived between 1304 and 1424. Pottery at the site was from a similar or earlier time. A DNA analysis linked the bones, which were excavated at El Arenal on the Arauco Peninsula in south central Chile, to chickens from Polynesian islands..."

This was the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/sc...b35c&ei=5 070

Maybe you can find it with the date on NYT's website.
 
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