Chicken Bones - Serious Evidence for Polynesian Contact with South America.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The book 1491 also said

Did you read it and if yes do you recommend?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Oerdin
GGS is a great book and the guy teaches Prehistory at UCLA so he knows what he's talking about.

Does not follow.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by VetLegion


Did you read it and if yes do you recommend?

The book is Ok but the main problem is it is written by a former reporter and not an archaeologists so the guy screws things up repeatedly. Sure, it has some interesting facts in it but he's such a whiny bleeding heart type that he insists on calling all native groups by what they called themselves in their language which results in every single native group having names which no one knows or recognizes. This is completely retarded as all of these groups already have universally accepted names in the English language; it's like the author is trying to replace the word "German" with "deutch" and then doing similiar for every ethnic or national group in the world. It's just retarded.

Further more the author has a tendency to go into exaggerations. He gets so busy extolling why natives are good, Europeans bad, and the ways which he believes the natives are better that he forgets that every where Europeans and natives met the Europeans ended up conquering them. That is EVERYWHERE as in 100% success without exception. The author doesn't like that fact so he ignores it. In short it is entertaining to read and you'll learn something but you can't take its word as gospel.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Oerdin
he forgets that every where Europeans and natives met the Europeans ended up conquering them. That is EVERYWHERE as in 100% success without exception.

I suggest some further reading on the Araucanian Wars - and there are more examples.

[Wernazuma III]

More on the topic: IIRC, it is accepted knowledge that the sweet potato came to Polynesia long before the Europeans did. It is surely not possible for the bulb to survive such a long distance in water. It has been suggested however, that natural currents could have brought the sweet potato across the Pacific in an abandoned boat...

I tend to believe that there was a precolumbian contact in this case, but there's no real proof. And there's the problem Oerdin mentioned :the fact that no pigs and chicken came to America, which would mean that if there was a contact, it is most probable that it was a one-time thing and from America to Polynesia and not the other way around, which in turn is less probable when it comes to navigational skills, Thor Heyerdahl notwithstanding.

Which brings us back to the original story: if the Carbon dating is correct and this is a precolumbian chicken, it must have been the only chicken they brought with them, otherwise we'd have had chicken all over South America at the time of the European arrival.
And even more probably, the fictive account of them "travelling back further north" is BS. Most eastern Polynesian islands were only settled because one band of an overcrowded island was forced to leave and luckily found a new home... That's how the Easter Island was settled at least twice.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Wernazuma III


I suggest some further reading on the Araucanian Wars - and there are more examples.

I'm not saying Europeans won every battle. I'm saying all the native societies/groups all ended up conquered in the end. See the difference?

[Japher]

I'm thinking aliens had something to do with this... ala Sitchin

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Oerdin


I'm not saying Europeans won every battle. I'm saying all the native societies/groups all ended up conquered in the end. See the difference?

Over 400 years of independence are "one battle" to you? Furthermore, only the Chilean army in the 2nd half of the 19th century - to me not "Europeans" - managed to conquer Araucania.
Also, you won't find me taking the native=good-Europeans-bad stance here, but how does this question even closely relate with the fact that Europeans were simply technologically superior?

And last but not least, with "native" you only refer to Indians, right?

[Dinner]

As soon as the Europeans moved into native lands in force, instead of simply ignoring them as occurred in the far south of Chile, the natives quickly were subjugated. The native who lived in the least desirable places, like southern Chile or Northern Alaska, held out the longest not because of any innate ability of their own but simply because Europeans didn't care for their land at that time. Eventually, the desirable places filled up and Europeans came looking for the less desirable places. Then the natives got squashed.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Oerdin
As soon as the Europeans moved into native lands in force, instead of simply ignoring them as occurred in the far south of Chile, the natives quickly were subjugated. The native who lived in the least desirable places, like southern Chile or Northern Alaska, held out the longest not because of any innate ability of their own but simply because Europeans didn't care for their land at that time. Eventually, the desirable places filled up and Europeans came looking for the less desirable places. Then the natives got squashed.

Not fully true. No doubt that if there had been massive silver amounts found, the situation would have been different.
Yet the Spanish tried at several occasions to get their foot to southern Chile and got their southern settlement burnt down each time they tried. The loss of manpower was considerable, several thousand Spanish soldiers, Chile was called "the Spanish graveyard" and the campaign to win the Arauco war was very costly and not successful. It's a really interesting story.

The Spanish also failed to control parts of Yucatan, especially until ~1650, some regions were never really controlled.

I don't think they had an "innate" ability to resist - this would be silly. But you seem to live in the equally silly belief that Europeans had an "innate" ability to conquer, while all they had was better technology and more men...

[Dinner]

No Europeans did not have an innate ability to conquor. They simply had better technology, larger numbers, and superior organizations. That mainly boiled down to geography and enviroment as stated in Guns, Germs, and Steel. Just like in Civ when you get the best starting position you normally end up the winner and the Eurasians got by far the best starting position.

[Wernazuma III]

So basically we agree.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Wernazuma III

Which brings us back to the original story: if the Carbon dating is correct and this is a precolumbian chicken, it must have been the only chicken they brought with them, otherwise we'd have had chicken all over South America at the time of the European arrival.

possibility - they hit a particularly conservative cultural group, that decided not incorporate the chicken, and no one else found out about it?

Other possibility - they group that got the chicken didnt have the resources to feed it? Or got unlucky, and all their chickens died of something or other?

[Dinner]

Andeans had domesticated the Muscovy Duck, the guinea pig, the lama, and the alpaca along with the dog which came from Asia. So they knew how to work with animals including birds plus they took to chickens very quickly as soon as the Europeans showed them to them.

If this is real (meaning not a bird a European traveler brought with them post-contact) then it is likely it was there wasn't a male to breed with.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
possibility - they hit a particularly conservative cultural group, that decided not incorporate the chicken, and no one else found out about it?

That would be a very stupid set of people, who were probably quickly overtaken by more open minded people.
At any rate, chicken don't need humans to multiply - think about the wild chicken of Kauai - although the conditions for chicken survival are surely better on Hawaii...

Other possibility - they group that got the chicken didnt have the resources to feed it? Or got unlucky, and all their chickens died of something or other?

The first is pretty unlikely, the second one is, well, one other possibility among possibilites of a yet to be proven general scenario.