• Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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    4 months ago

    According to wikipedia this is the less likely and imo less interesting explanation. They did find coconuts that are genetically distinct from the ones the Spanish brought over from the Philippines, but those ones are more distantly related to the ones in polynesia so they probably didn’t float over. Instead they are more likely evidence of pre-columbian contact of Polynesians with south and central America, along with sweet potatoes originating in South America but being present in polynesia and SEA prior to columbus.

    So this would boot Columbus off the podium in people who discovered America.

    1. Bering strait people / native American ancestors

    2. Polynesian people

    3. Vikings, Leif Erickson

    4. Columbus

    • PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      I personally like the “literally everyone else got their first” theory as a joke that suggests that Mansa Musa’s predecessor and the Ming Dynasty treasure fleets also happened to get there, granted with Mansa Musa’s predecessor making a one way trip and with the treasure fleets not actually having realized they’d hit a distinct landmass.

      • MuchPineapples@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Reading about the treasure fleet is wild:

        The Chinese expeditionary fleet was heavily militarized and carried great amounts of treasures, which served to project Chinese power and wealth to the known world. They brought back many foreign ambassadors whose kings and rulers were willing to declare themselves tributaries of China. During the course of the voyages, they destroyed Chen Zuyi’s pirate fleet at Palembang, captured the Sinhalese Kotte kingdom of King Alakeshvara, and defeated the forces of the Semudera pretender Sekandar in northern Sumatra.

        Sounds like a fantasy novel.

      • Taniwha420@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        IRC the genetics don’t support that. It looks more like Polynesians originate from the area around Taiwan, sharing DNA with the indigenous Taiwanese. Again IRC there are some South American genes present in the Easter Island or Tahiti area, which seem to have been introduced pre-European contact. It’s tricky to tell though because there has been so much sharing of genetics since then. It looks like maybe some Polynesians went to South America one or a few times and returned.

        • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          But Taiwan to Polynesia is upcurrent, while South America to Polynesia is downcurrent. How would you go thousands of kilometers against the current without modern technology?

    • marcos@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Is there a consensus already over the relative position of #1 and #2 of your list?

      • Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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        4 months ago

        1 and 2 I think have pretty good consensus. The Bering land bridge opened about 10,000 years ago while the Polynesians didn’t reach Hawaii until 900 ad, so if they got to South America it was probably after that. There is some speculation that some separate group of people crossed over even before them since evidence shows that the south American coast became populated very quickly after the Bering bridge opened. Like they got to South America before they got to the interior of north America. That could be because the Rockies are large and without the fish that those people were probably eating, or it could be that some very early people, millennium before the Polynesians domesticated coconuts, made the crossing. That theory of very far in the realm of speculation but it’s a fun theory.

  • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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    4 months ago

    Coconuts were introduced to the Caribbean region by humans. They didn’t just float there.

  • AstridWipenaugh@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    This is nonsense. Coconuts were spread by humans.

    Such an origin indicates that the coconuts were not introduced naturally, such as by sea currents. The researchers concluded that it was brought by early Austronesian sailors to the Americas from at least 2,250 BP, and may be proof of pre-Columbian contact between Austronesian cultures and South American cultures.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut

  • essell@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    How many coconuts sacrificed their lives to achieve colonising the new lands?

    Its a level of reproductive attrition rivalling a teenage boy’s bedroom sock

  • halloween_spookster@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    If they came from Asia to the Caribbean via the Pacific, how did they traverse North America? If they came via the Atlantic, how did they traverse Europe, the Mediterranean, or Africa?

    • doubtingtammy@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      Yeah. It’s pretty hard to believe they just “floated” over considering sweet potatos mde it to the Philippines from south America. Clearly those didn’t float over. Someone else posted a scientific article providing evidence that humans brought the coconut to the Americas