A aringa ora #moai, made of basalt (same material as Hoa Hakananai'a) and taken away in 1870, has returned home!

It arrived yesterday and made a procession from Hanga Roa to the local anthropological museum accompanied by hundreds of #rapanui Some people are asking: "why to the museum instead of back to its original ahu?".

We agree that should be the way to do it under the right conditions. Besides, the MAPSE is just a provisional location since the museum is moving to Vaitea this decade.

What happens here is...

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… 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.

There seems to be a lot of fuzz about this article. Good thing @carlzimmer added the input of @MatisooSmith, renowned geneticist, and Pat Kirch and @HaunaniKane, real experts in Polynesia. We couldn't be more skeptical...

nytimes.com/2020/07/08/sci… The paper, and especially most press-releases seem to suffer from "going way beyond reasonable conclusions from a very limited study" syndrom.

The fact that it seems to be willing to resurrect the dead and buried theories of Thor Heyerdahl also raises eyebrows from us...