8Did the Polynesians reach America before Europeans?
Chicken Bones Suggest Polynesians Found Americas Before Columbus
By Heather Whipps, June 04, 2007
Source: LiveScience
A. Which came first–the chicken or the European? Popular history holds that Europeans made
contact with the Americas in 1492, with some arguing that the explorer and his crew were the
first outsiders to reach the New World. But chicken bones recently unearthed on the coast of
Chile—dating before Columbus’ “discovery” of America and resembling the DNA of a species
native to Polynesia—may challenge that notion, researchers say. “Chickens could not have
gotten to South America on their own—they had to be taken by humans,” said anthropologist
Lisa Matisoo-Smith from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Polynesians made contact
with the west coast of South America as much as a century before any Spanish conquistadors,
her findings imply.
B. The chicken bones were discovered at an archaeological site called El Arenal, on the south
coast of Chile, alongside other materials belonging to the indigenous population. While chickens
aren’t native to the region, it was believed the local species found there now was brought to the
Americas by Spanish settlers around 1500. Tests on the bones, however, now indicate the birds
arrived well before any European made landfall in South America, Matisoo-Smith and her
colleague Alice Storey found. “We had the chicken bone directly dated by radio carbon. The
calibrated date was clearly prior to 1492,” Matisoo-Smith told LiveScience, noting that it could
have ranged anywhere from 1304 to 1424. “This also fits with the other dates obtained from the
site (on other materials), and it fits with the cultural period of the site.” DNA extracted from the
bones also matched closely with a Polynesian breed of chicken, rather than any chickens found
in Europe.
C. Polynesia was settled by sailors who migrated from mainland Southeast Asia, beginning about
3,000 years ago. They continued gradually eastwards, but were never thought to have journeyed
further than Easter Island, about 2,000 miles off the coast of Chile. The chicken DNA suggests
at least one group did make the journey across the remaining stretch of Pacific, Matisoo-Smith
said. “We cannot say exactly which island the voyage came from. The DNA is similar to
chickens from Tonga, Samoa, Niue, Easter Island and Hawaii,” Matisoo-Smith said. “If we had
to guess, we would say it most likely have come from Easter Island or some other East
Polynesian source that we have not yet sampled.
D. There are more scientific arguments, too, said Matisoo-Smith. “There is increasing evidence
of multiple contacts with the Americas,” she said, “based on similar language and similarities in
fish hook styles.” Physical evidence of human DNA from Polynesia has yet to be found in South
America, she added.