WI: Polynesians make contact with Mayans

I've seen people wanting to give the Polynesians metallurgy before, but it just isn't going to happen. The reason is simple...There isn't a patch of copper or iron ore from Peru to.... probably New Caledonia at the very earliest. There's simply no way for the technique to spread from island to island with no raw materials whatsoever to use it on.

Also, I really think the Polynesians made it to South America at least once. They may have even managed a round trip (That could account for the sweet potato). I've read studies genetically linking chickens on the west coast of central/south America with Polynesian breeds, and a few seemingly slightly precolumbian chickens in the archaeological record. More to the point, the Americas are an enormous target and I just don't imagine the Polynesians managing to miss them after landing on practically every little scrap of land in the tropical Pacific. But I bet there was no sustained contact, and also that the Polynesians didn't start showing up until after 1000, maybe after 1200 (this is mostly a hunch based on settlement times of other outlying islands). I doubt they really made a big impression though, or we'd all know about it.

I guess one problem is that despite demonstrated seafaring capability on the part of the Polynesian peoples, there doesn't seem to be evidence for sustained long term trading contact post permanent settlement of the new lands. At least in the case of the far-off lands, like say New Zealand. The current orthodox view is that once viable settlement had been made with an initially small group of settlers, two way contact stopped.

Here is a link!

I would imagine getting to the Americas would be a similar level of effort from the Polynesia core islands so once an American settlement was viable for the Polynesians I'm not sure what their incentive would be to continue trading with the homelands, given the vast distances.
 
I would imagine getting to the Americas would be a similar level of effort from the Polynesia core islands so once an American settlement was viable for the Polynesians I'm not sure what their incentive would be to continue trading with the homelands, given the vast distances.

I'm thinking of the sweet potato model. If the Polynesians can get to South America and bring back the sweet potato, they can theoretically bring back many more crops. Granted I don't know what possessed them to take the sweet potato back to the seas in the first place.
 
I'm thinking of the sweet potato model. If the Polynesians can get to South America and bring back the sweet potato, they can theoretically bring back many more crops. Granted I don't know what possessed them to take the sweet potato back to the seas in the first place.

Take a look at that link I posted - it is reasonably informative. It states that for some unknown reason the expansion wave stopped about 1500 and from that point on long distance seafaring declined rapidly amongst Polynesians
 
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