POLYNESIAN CHICKENS AND TRANSPACIFIC CONTACTS

Hawaiian Red Junglefowl

A new mitochondrial DNA study on the origins of Polynesian chickens, if it's right, cuts off one important branch of the theory of precolumbian Polynesian contact in South America.

The controversial theory that the famous, fabulous, Polynesian sailors of the South Pacific made it to the South American coast before the Europeans has been debated in archaeological circles since the 1940s. Pooh-poohed by a multitude of scientists when it was first proposed, the theory gained new stature in the early 21st century, when several strands of data emerged: the pre-15th century appearance of putatively American bottle gourds and sweet potatoes in Polynesia, and Polynesian coconuts and chickens in South America.

However, earlier this year, Kistler et al reported DNA evidence indicating that American bottle gourds were domesticated from African examples which floated across the Atlantic; and now it seems that the early chickens along the Peruvian coastline don't have the right DNA signature to have come from Polynesian sources.

Don't get me wrong: the theory of early transpacific connections is not dead. Kistler et al.'s bottle gourd study makes the Polynesian theory more difficult to parse but doesn't necessarily reject it; but the new chicken data (if it holds up) is definitely a blow.

By K. Kris Hirst available in http://archaeology.about.com/b/2014/03/19/polynesian-chickens-and-transpacific-contacts.htm?nl=1. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

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