La isla mocha

By Tupuola Terry Tavita

The Polynesian and American history world is about to be turned on its head as leading scientists put on the finishing touches to their report on recent archeological studies of possible pre-Columbian Polynesian skeletal remains on an island off the South American coast.

A team led by Otago University’s Professor Lisa Matisoo-Smith has been conducting archaeological research on the island of La Isla Mocha, 30 kilometers off the Chilean Coast

In an interview with Estonian broadcaster ETV in the weekend, Prof. Matisoo said;

“It has always been a contention that did Polynesians take chicken to America and brought back the sweet potato to the islands, or was it the other way around. Until we find human remains, that issue could always be debated. Now we think we actually have evidence of Polynesian human remains in South America. 

“When we were looking through museum collections of more chicken bones, rat bones and dog bones we actually found some human remains that had physical characteristics – in terms of physical characteristics – that are very to Polynesian remains. Polynesian people of course are very robust, very muscular, very tall where-as the Mapuche people – who are indigenous to the south-central coast of Chile look quite different. They don’t have quite the same tall stature. If you look at Polynesians in the All Blacks, that is the typical body form of Polynesians which is different from that of the Mapuches.”

Prof Matisoo-Smith and her team’s findings will be released later this year. And their impact could see a rethink of Polynesian migration and the redrawing of the Polynesian triangle to extend to South America.

“Polynesians wouldn’t have stopped when they got to Easter Island. They wouldn’t have known that that was the last island. They would’ve moved on and kept on exploring until they couldn’t go any further. And the only way you would stop exploring is when you hit land. And that will be the South American continent. Because we defined the Polynesian Triangles in terms of islands, I really don’t know why we thought they would’ve stopped at Easter Island.

“Most likely they would have hit South America then travelled up northin to sweet potato country, and where the winds diverged in north-central America, made the trip back to their islands.”

Prof. Matisoo-Smith added that cranial evidence of the skeletal remains from Isla Mocha“are definitely very likely to be those of Polynesians.”

Prof MatisooSmith – a biological anthropologist – is no stranger to Polynesian studies in South America. In 2007, she and her colleagues discovered the presence of Polynesian chickens in pre-Columbus America by tracing pre-historic chicken remains found in Chile to Polynesian fowl found in Samoa and Tonga.

Share This

About the author