Family animated movies of 2016 Moana brought the long story of Polynesian sailors (along with some incredibly catchy tunes) to a much wider global audience. The oral history of the has been confirmed in a new way. A study published April 21 in the journal scientific progress.
[Related from PopSci+: Voyagers made it to Hawaiʻi thousands of years ago with no compasses. Here’s how.]
length before the arrival of the EuropeansPolynesian wayfinders sailed by canoe to the islands of the central Pacific, and tales of their adventures survive largely through oral histories. Physical evidence to support the explanation is limited.
“Pacific Islanders were able to travel great distances and did so in all parts of the Pacific. Polynesians settled hundreds of islands, from Papua New Guinea to Easter Island (Rapa Nui).” and co-author of the study, an archaeologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research Aymeric Herrmann To tell Pop rhinoceros. “The extent of long-distance voyages in seas as vast as the Pacific, and centuries before other societies could actually master sailing, is pretty amazing.”
Details of western expansion to a group of islands west of Polynesia can be found in Polynesian Outlier became even more unclear. Indigenous cultures vary among Pacific islands, but oral traditions and shared cultural items indicate that there may have been contact and exchange of goods over long distances.
In this new studyan international team of scientists analyzed stone artifacts from Polynesian outliers, where communities are thought to be more culturally isolated. In trying to find a connection, the team’s analysis suggests that the items were transported there from more than 1,000 miles away from their source area in Samoa.
These findings support dominant theory The societies of Western Polynesian societies have been incredibly fluid over the last millennium and may have colonized outliers as a result of voyages.
To do so, Hermann and colleagues grabbed geochemical fingerprint From stone tools found in the Polynesian Outliers. According to Hermann, most geochemical resource surveys in the Pacific have been conducted on oceanic islands with geochemical signatures distinct from outliers. This presented the team with a major challenge of many possible sources with many overlapping geochemical features, from Southeast Asia to the Eastern Pacific.
[Related: On board the canoe that proved ancient Polynesians could cross the Pacific.]
To probe and distinguish these features, they performed isotopic and geochemical analyzes of 14 artifacts on three anomalous islands (Emae, Taumakoand Kapingarangi) as early as 1258 CE. The team combined these analyzes with previous work, using a large database of geological features from sites across Oceania. They were able to source artifacts on distant islands and volcanic arcs more than 1,000 miles away to the east of the outlier.
“Of all the possible sources in the Pacific, all the artifacts that can be clearly associated with Western Polynesian traditions were sourced from the very same quarries in Samoa that were also the source of other artifacts found in the Eastern Pacific. ” said Hermann.
Evidence from sources supports the early research and oral histories of this journey across the vast distances of the Pacific Ocean.
According to Hermann, it’s important to remember that “global history always comes first with local history.”team asked for permission Communities of Makatea, Tongamea, Finongi and Sangaba on Emae Island and of Ti Makata Mata, Ma Ti Tonga, D Malibu, Sasamake, Ti Nambua Mata, Ti Nambua Loto and Ti Macula Mata The field research required for this study from the chief.
“Looking at human history requires using a new lens. People are always on the move, societies are always changing in contact with their neighbors, and sometimes very long before Christopher Columbus even reached the Americas. It’s changed over the long haul,” Hermann said.
