ILLUSTRATIONS; PREFACE; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; Ch01. Re-introducing the Casefor Polynesian Contact; Ch02. Diffusionism in Archaeological Theory; Ch03. Myths and Oral Traditions; Ch04. A Long-Standing Debate; Ch05. The Artifact Record from North America; Ch06. The Mapuche Connection; Ch07. Identifying Contact with the Americas; Ch08. A Reappraisal of the Evidence for Pre-Columbian Introduction of Chickens to the Americas; Ch09. Did Ancient Polynesians Reach the New World?; Ch10. Words from Furthest Polynesia; Ch11. Human Biological Evidence for Polynesian Contacts with the Americas
Summary
The possibility that Polynesian seafarers made landfall and interacted with the native people of the New World before Columbus has been the topic of academic discussion for well over a century, although American archaeologists have considered the idea verboten since the 1970s. Fresh discoveries made with the aid of new technologies along with re-evaluation of longstanding but often-ignored evidence provide a stronger case than ever before for multiple prehistoric Polynesian landfalls. This book reviews the debate, evaluates theoretical trends that have discouraged consideration of trans-oceani
