🚀 go-pugleaf

Yuri Kuchinsky wrote:
> 
> Ross Clark (benlizro@ihug.co.nz) wrote on Sat, 09 Jan 1999 10:09:31 +1300:
> : Yuri Kuchinsky wrote:
> 
> : > See the Chapter POLYNESIANS REACHED MELANESIA FROM THE EAST (p. 52ff) in
> : > AMERICAN INDIANS IN THE PACIFIC. There Heyerdahl cites Buck (1938), who
> : > was a supporter of mainstream view that Polynesians came from the West.
> : > But he had to admit that the evidence points otherwise in this particular
> : > case.
> : >
> : > "That intermixture took place between the Melanesians and Polynesians may
> : > also be admitted, but it appears that this mixture was due to a later
> : > westward movement of Polynesians from Tonga and Samoa rather than to
> : > contact with Melanesians by the original Polynesian migrants of their way
> : > through Melanesian islands." (p. 52)
> : >
> : > Also other sources are cited to this effect, including linguistic.
> : >
> : > And Ross Clark basically said the same thing re linguistic evidence
> : > recently.
> 
> : Gisele, I think you know Yuri well enough not to take his word for
> : anything like this. I did not say the same thing as what Heyerdahl
> : suggests. As usual, it's hard to tell whether Yuri has just
> : misunderstood something I said, or is deliberately misrepresenting it.
> 
> You were the one who was talking about "back-settlements from western
> Polynesia". Perhaps you can clarify.
> 

I'll be happy to try. The ancestors of the Polynesians reached Polynesia
from the west by, say, 3000 BP. It was in the Samoa-Tonga area that they
developed the cultural, linguistic and physical characteristics that we
now know as "Polynesian". By, say, 2000 BP they were beginning to
colonize eastern Polynesia. From this time on, also, various groups of
Polynesians moved west and established themselves in small enclaves in
Melanesia and Micronesia. There are about 15 such enclaves, from the
Loyalty Islands to the central Carolines. These are the
"back-settlements" I was talking about, commonly known as the Polynesian
Outliers. 

This is a completely separate matter from the relationship between
Polynesian and the languages of Fiji, Vanuatu, Micronesia and so on,
which is not a matter of "admixture", and which reflects a common
history at a time before "Polynesians" as such existed.

Ross Clark