Polynesians in America: Pre-Columbian Contacts with the New World

Abstract

In the history of science there have been many occasions when scholars working independently in different fields and from different nationalities have simultaneously turned their attention to the same intellectual questions - often unbeknownst to one another. Such intellectual convergence seems to occur when scholarly momentum builds up to the point where once-new, fresh theories seem old and ineffective, and old disfavored ideas become worthy of reconsideration. On some level, this book can be seen as the result of such processes. Early in the new millennium a number of scholars in different geographic areas began to reconsider what had become a forgotten topic in mainstream western academia: pre-Columbian transoceanic diffusion - in particular, the possibility that Polynesian seafarers reached American shores before 1492. Seemingly unbeknownst to each other, groups of scholars in five different parts of the world started re-examining various lines of evidence for Polynesian contacts, re-opening a debate that had raged for much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In some cases, these scholars were not actually aware of the full history and scope of this debate, inasmuch as it had disappeared from mainstream academic agendas nearly three decades earlier. Of course, science often gains momentum from key discoveries, and two from the 1990s ultimately helped fuel the research presented in this volume.