Polynesian Origin
The origin of the Polynesian people has been one of the most disputed scientific mysteries regarding ancient maritime migrations. The roots of the people of Polynesia had always thought to have been South Asia, namely the island nations like Indonesia. This was the common dogma until Thor Heyerdahl, a ethnologist at the University of Oslo, Norway, set sail across the Pacific ocean on a balsa wood raft to declare the true ancestors of the Polynesians to be the South Americans. Dr. Heyerdahl initially began to doubt the dogma of Polynesian origin when he was on his honeymoon in the Polynesian Islands. He heard a chieftain tell the creation story of the local Polynesian natives. The tale told of tall, fair-skinned, towheaded men that descended
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Sailing a Pre-Inca style balsawood raft from Peru to Polynesia was a valiant experiment undoubtedly, and surely proved that the ancient South Americans could have made the same journey, but it did not prove that they actually did. The original theory of Polynesian origin was South Asia; The roots of the Polynesian language and Polynesian genes can both be traced back to South Asia. In the realm of linguistics, a major opposing argument of the Kon Tiki theory is the roots of the Polynesian language. Polynesian language has been analyzed by many experts is the field, and is thought to have originated from the Austronesian family, a language family originating in Taiwan, instead of originating from a South American language. Furthermore, in the realm of genetics, there is concrete evidence that Polynesians are the direct descendants of Southern Asians, from the coastal mainland and island regions like Indonesia. Mitochondrial DNA, following the female line of a population, is particularly accurate when trying to discern the genetic origin of a population. In 2011, Professor Martin Richards of the Leeds researchers, did a study on 157 samples of mitochondrial DNA from native Polynesians and these genes closely resembled the genes of the Taiwanese people who populated Papua New …show more content…
However, majority of the evidence points to the ancient South Americans being the ancient forefathers of the Polynesians. The cultural likenesses linking the creation myths of the ancient South Americans and the Polynesians and the similarities between their art forms are decisive in their support of the Kon Tiki theory. This is because the very essence of a society is expressed in their mythology and art, and there is a much greater degree of this evidence in common with the ancient South Americans and the Polynesians than the ancient South Asians and the Polynesians. Linguistics that trace back to Taiwanese roots could have been the product of a later migration to Polynesia after the South Americans had left or died out. On Easter Island, the massive moai so mysteriously placed are even more mysterious in their resemblance to Pre-Incan stone heads found along the shore of Lake Titicaca. The creation stories of the Polynesian culture, of a great white chieftain named Tiki who led the ancient Polynesians out of darkness, is nearly identical to the legends of the Pre-Incan natives living in the Lake Titicaca area of a great sun god, once again a saviour of his people, named Kon-Tiki. While the refuting arguments are strong, I believe that the theory of Dr. Heyerdahl and the Kon-Tiki is sailing towards the horizon, finding
Sailing a Pre-Inca style balsawood raft from Peru to Polynesia was a valiant experiment undoubtedly, and surely proved that the ancient South Americans could have made the same journey, but it did not prove that they actually did. The original theory of Polynesian origin was South Asia; The roots of the Polynesian language and Polynesian genes can both be traced back to South Asia. In the realm of linguistics, a major opposing argument of the Kon Tiki theory is the roots of the Polynesian language. Polynesian language has been analyzed by many experts is the field, and is thought to have originated from the Austronesian family, a language family originating in Taiwan, instead of originating from a South American language. Furthermore, in the realm of genetics, there is concrete evidence that Polynesians are the direct descendants of Southern Asians, from the coastal mainland and island regions like Indonesia. Mitochondrial DNA, following the female line of a population, is particularly accurate when trying to discern the genetic origin of a population. In 2011, Professor Martin Richards of the Leeds researchers, did a study on 157 samples of mitochondrial DNA from native Polynesians and these genes closely resembled the genes of the Taiwanese people who populated Papua New …show more content…
However, majority of the evidence points to the ancient South Americans being the ancient forefathers of the Polynesians. The cultural likenesses linking the creation myths of the ancient South Americans and the Polynesians and the similarities between their art forms are decisive in their support of the Kon Tiki theory. This is because the very essence of a society is expressed in their mythology and art, and there is a much greater degree of this evidence in common with the ancient South Americans and the Polynesians than the ancient South Asians and the Polynesians. Linguistics that trace back to Taiwanese roots could have been the product of a later migration to Polynesia after the South Americans had left or died out. On Easter Island, the massive moai so mysteriously placed are even more mysterious in their resemblance to Pre-Incan stone heads found along the shore of Lake Titicaca. The creation stories of the Polynesian culture, of a great white chieftain named Tiki who led the ancient Polynesians out of darkness, is nearly identical to the legends of the Pre-Incan natives living in the Lake Titicaca area of a great sun god, once again a saviour of his people, named Kon-Tiki. While the refuting arguments are strong, I believe that the theory of Dr. Heyerdahl and the Kon-Tiki is sailing towards the horizon, finding