Rights:
- Yes! Polynesians made it to the Americas. Multiple times at multiple latitudes. Left fowls, vocabulary, technical breakthroughs (i.e. sails), and some genes.
Wrongs:
- No! South Americans never settled in Fatu Hiva, Te Fenua 'Enata.
arstechnica.com/science/2020/0…
- Yes! Polynesians made it to the Americas. Multiple times at multiple latitudes. Left fowls, vocabulary, technical breakthroughs (i.e. sails), and some genes.
Wrongs:
- No! South Americans never settled in Fatu Hiva, Te Fenua 'Enata.
arstechnica.com/science/2020/0…
You need a lot more than some vague similarities in genetics to rewrite the history of Pacific Settlement, ignoring all the archaeological and ethnographic evidence.
It's difficult to break through your narrow epistemic bubble as the sole acceptable evidence.
It's difficult to break through your narrow epistemic bubble as the sole acceptable evidence.
Want to tell a Grand History of the Human Settlement of the Pacific? Makes a lot more sense to use all the available evidence from all sources of knowledge in a systematic way to get closer to the facts. That can only be done by breaking out of the epistemic bubble.
There are some good ones. Most need to be brought up to date. But don't come to our field (history, archaeology, anthropology) telling us that a tiny, conjectural interpretation of genetics retells everything.
Heyerdahl also convinced the media. The scholars? Not so much...
Heyerdahl also convinced the media. The scholars? Not so much...
Of course, this story will die out in time just like Heyerdahls. The authors will get more funding, they got the exposure, the paper got the impact. But it's a setback. It's a waste of time for the rest of us.
Plus: Bullshit Assymetry Principle.
Plus: Bullshit Assymetry Principle.
