Re: Rat genes solve mystery of great Pacific odyssey

From: Yuri Kuchinsky (yuku_at_trends.ca)
Date: 06/20/04 

Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2004 13:15:26 -0400

benlizross wrote:
>
> Yuri Kuchinsky wrote:
> >
> > benlizross wrote:
> > >
> > > Yuri Kuchinsky wrote:
> > > >
> > > > benlizross wrote:
> > > >
> > > > ...
> > > >
> > > > > As for who did the voyaging, I think you are with the majority in
> > > > > thinking that it was most likely the Polynesians,
> > > >
> > > > The majority is pretty ignorant about such things.
> > >
> > > Well, I think it would be a majority of people who are well informed
> > > about such things, too.
> >
> > Are you informed?
>
> Pretty well.

Judging by what you're saying below, unfortunately this is
not the case...

> > > > The Polynesians certainly didn't invent the boat _after_
> > > > they got to Polynesia. This must have happened before.
> > >
> > > At last something we can all agree on! And your point is...?
> >
> > I thought it was rather obvious.
> >
> > The Polynesians must have come to Polynesia from some
> > mainland. Thus, they had brought their navigational skills
> > with them from some mainland, where such skills must have
> > been common knowledge.
> >
> > So, based on the above, it makes little sense to assume that
> > only the Polynesians had the navigational skills to make
> > contacts with a mainland.
>
> But comparison is between the Polynesians and the South Americans, and
> the reasoning is that the Polynesians are known to have been skilled
> deep sea navigators, whereas the South Americans are not. (I know the
> latter generalization needs to be qualified.)

No, this generalization needs to be rejected.

> The mainland that the
> Polynesians came from was Asia -- or at the very least, their sailing
> technology came from there.

How so?

In actual fact, the evidence points elsewhere.

> Are you suggesting that some Indonesians
> might have sailed all the way to South America and then dropped off the
> kumara in Polynesia? What do you see as the advantage of this theory?
>
> Ross Clark

I see no advantage in this theory.

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky -=O=- http://www.trends.ca/~yuku -=O=-
Toronto

But scientists, who ought to know
Assure us that it must be so.
Oh, let us never, never doubt
What nobody is sure about.
         -- Hilaire Belloc

Relevant Pages

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