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Why did the chicken cross the Pacific? Florida drought uncovers archaeological treasures; and planning a voyage to a deep, deep lake.
By Moises Velasquez-Manofffrom the June 7, 2007 edition
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Why did the chicken cross the ocean?
Scientists have unearthed the first concrete evidence of a Polynesian presence in South America before the European arrival. The evidence isn't pottery shards, stone tools, or boats, but ... chicken bones.
Researcher Alice Storey, lead author of the study, which appears in the current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, carbon-dated 50 chicken bones found on Chile's Arauco Peninsula. The chickens died between AD 1321 and 1407, at least 85 years before Columbus made landfall in the Bahamas. Analysis revealed a genetic match with chicken bones from the same period found in American Samoa.
Humans first domesticated chickens in Southeast Asia. Polynesians brought chickens, which began appearing 3,000 years ago in their archaeological record, as well as pigs, rats, and dogs as they colonized the islands of the South Pacific. By AD 1200, Polynesians had arrived on Easter Island, 2,237 miles west of Chile.
Polynesian contact with South America would explain several enduring mysteries. Polynesians grow a sweet potato and gourd of South American origin, and when Spain's Francisco Pizarro arrived in Incan lands in 1532, he found that chickens were an integral part of Incan society.
In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl famously sailed Kon-Tiki, a balsa-wood raft, from Peru to the Tuamotu Islands. He sought to prove that Stone-Age seafarers could have colonized Easter Island from the east. "He had it backwards," Ms. Storey, a PhD candidate at the University of Auckland, told Reuters. More likely, Polynesians sailing from west to east landed on South American shores, bringing chickens and taking sweet potatoes.
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