Post by blackcrowheart on Oct 3, 2007 13:51:09 GMT -5
DNA from chicken bone shows Polynesians 'found' South America
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 05 June 2007
A chicken bone has provided anthropologists with the strongest evidence yet to suggest that Polynesians sailed to South America before the discovery of the New World by Europeans.
The possibility that Polynesians had direct contact with the indigenous people of South America has long intrigued experts on ancient human migrations, but hard evidence has been difficult to come by. However, a study by scientists from New Zealand and Chile has now shown that chickens may have been introduced into South America by Polynesians sailing from the west rather than Europeans coming from the east.
Chicken bones excavated from an archaeological site in central Chile have been analysed by carbon dating and by DNA profiling. One of the bones was dated to more than 100 years before the first Europeans arrived in South America and its DNA shows a strong correlation with the DNA of present-day chickens living on the inhabited islands of the Pacific Ocean.
Domestic chickens are thought to have derived from wild birds that lived in the forests of the Indian subcontinent and the people who first migrated to the Americas from Asia - using a land bridge across the Bering Strait - are not believed to have taken chickens with them.
Yet the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro reported on his arrival in Peru in 1532 that the local Inca were using chickens as part of their religious ceremonies, suggesting that the domestic bird had been part of the native culture for some time.
Some experts believe, however, that chickens could not have existed in South America before the arrival of the first Europeans and that they must have been introduced by sailors from Europe.
The chicken bones came from an archaeological site at El Arenal in the Arauco region. A total of 50 bones have been recovered, but the single bone that provided the crucial dating evidence came from a bird estimated to have lived between 1321 and 1407 - a century before the Portuguese landed in Brazil, according to the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Until now the evidence in support of a direct cultural connection with Polynesians has been circumstantial. Linguists have identified similarities in language and anthropologists have noted the presence of American items such as the sweet potato and the bottle-gourd plant in eastern Polynesia long before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas.
Alice Storey, a doctoral student in the department of anthropology at the University of Auckland, and her colleagues suggest that Polynesian seafarers could have used the reliable trade westerlies of the southern hemisphere to carry them and their cargo of living chickens to Chile.
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 05 June 2007
A chicken bone has provided anthropologists with the strongest evidence yet to suggest that Polynesians sailed to South America before the discovery of the New World by Europeans.
The possibility that Polynesians had direct contact with the indigenous people of South America has long intrigued experts on ancient human migrations, but hard evidence has been difficult to come by. However, a study by scientists from New Zealand and Chile has now shown that chickens may have been introduced into South America by Polynesians sailing from the west rather than Europeans coming from the east.
Chicken bones excavated from an archaeological site in central Chile have been analysed by carbon dating and by DNA profiling. One of the bones was dated to more than 100 years before the first Europeans arrived in South America and its DNA shows a strong correlation with the DNA of present-day chickens living on the inhabited islands of the Pacific Ocean.
Domestic chickens are thought to have derived from wild birds that lived in the forests of the Indian subcontinent and the people who first migrated to the Americas from Asia - using a land bridge across the Bering Strait - are not believed to have taken chickens with them.
Yet the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro reported on his arrival in Peru in 1532 that the local Inca were using chickens as part of their religious ceremonies, suggesting that the domestic bird had been part of the native culture for some time.
Some experts believe, however, that chickens could not have existed in South America before the arrival of the first Europeans and that they must have been introduced by sailors from Europe.
The chicken bones came from an archaeological site at El Arenal in the Arauco region. A total of 50 bones have been recovered, but the single bone that provided the crucial dating evidence came from a bird estimated to have lived between 1321 and 1407 - a century before the Portuguese landed in Brazil, according to the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Until now the evidence in support of a direct cultural connection with Polynesians has been circumstantial. Linguists have identified similarities in language and anthropologists have noted the presence of American items such as the sweet potato and the bottle-gourd plant in eastern Polynesia long before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas.
Alice Storey, a doctoral student in the department of anthropology at the University of Auckland, and her colleagues suggest that Polynesian seafarers could have used the reliable trade westerlies of the southern hemisphere to carry them and their cargo of living chickens to Chile.