Polynesians find Americas before Columbus

StarsInsider.com via MSN.com, Nov. 7, 2023; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

The sewn plank technology in canoes (tomols) used by Native American Chumash people of Southern California (Ventura. LA County, Channel Islands) are very similar to Polynesian vessels.

11 French Polynesian islands most travelers have never heard of | Travel Nation

Did the Polynesians reach the Americas before Columbus?

Who found it? (Edward P. Vining)

The ancient seafaring Polynesians were incredibly skilled navigators who managed to discover and settle on hundreds of islands across the Pacific Ocean.

Their territory extended from Hawaii in the north to New Zealand in the southwest and Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the southeast. But did they go as far as the American continent? This gallery looks back at Polynesian voyages and expansion and examines the evidence of their presence in the Americas.

An Inglorious Columbus; Evidence that Hwui Shan and a Party of Buddhist Monks from Afghanistan Discovered America in 5th Century, A.D. (Internet Archive)

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(Getty Images/Stars Insider)

Polynesian voyagers crossed millions of miles throughout the Pacific Ocean without nautical instruments. They relied on reading nature's signs and managed to find some of the world’s most remote places. But where did the Polynesians come from, really? Let’s take a look at their ancestry. 

Polynesian ancestry

Archeological data indicates Polynesians traveled south, first to the Philippines then to New Guinea and its Bismarck Archipelago. It’s believed the ancestors mixed with the natives at the Bismarck Archipelago, and by around 1300 BCE a new culture, known as the Lapita, had developed. More