Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate?
140According to wikipedia this is the less likely and imo less interesting explanation. They did find coconuts that are genetically distinct from the ones the Spanish brought over from the Philippines, but those ones are more distantly related to the ones in polynesia so they probably didn't float over. Instead they are more likely evidence of pre-columbian contact of Polynesians with south and central America, along with sweet potatoes originating in South America but being present in polynesia and SEA prior to columbus.
So this would boot Columbus off the podium in people who discovered America.
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Bering strait people / native American ancestors
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Polynesian people
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Vikings, Leif Erickson
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Columbus
72I personally like the "literally everyone else got their first" theory as a joke that suggests that Mansa Musa's predecessor and the Ming Dynasty treasure fleets also happened to get there, granted with Mansa Musa's predecessor making a one way trip and with the treasure fleets not actually having realized they'd hit a distinct landmass.
20Reading about the treasure fleet is wild:
The Chinese expeditionary fleet was heavily militarized and carried great amounts of treasures, which served to project Chinese power and wealth to the known world. They brought back many foreign ambassadors whose kings and rulers were willing to declare themselves tributaries of China. During the course of the voyages, they destroyed Chen Zuyi's pirate fleet at Palembang, captured the Sinhalese Kotte kingdom of King Alakeshvara, and defeated the forces of the Semudera pretender Sekandar in northern Sumatra.
Sounds like a fantasy novel.
4
Your point is valid, but less funny and will therefore be ignored
(Thank you for fact checking)
13If I remember correctly, the Polynesians went there from South America, not the other way around.
3IRC the genetics don't support that. It looks more like Polynesians originate from the area around Taiwan, sharing DNA with the indigenous Taiwanese. Again IRC there are some South American genes present in the Easter Island or Tahiti area, which seem to have been introduced pre-European contact. It's tricky to tell though because there has been so much sharing of genetics since then. It looks like maybe some Polynesians went to South America one or a few times and returned.
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Is there a consensus already over the relative position of #1 and #2 of your list?
11 and 2 I think have pretty good consensus. The Bering land bridge opened about 10,000 years ago while the Polynesians didn't reach Hawaii until 900 ad, so if they got to South America it was probably after that. There is some speculation that some separate group of people crossed over even before them since evidence shows that the south American coast became populated very quickly after the Bering bridge opened. Like they got to South America before they got to the interior of north America. That could be because the Rockies are large and without the fish that those people were probably eating, or it could be that some very early people, millennium before the Polynesians domesticated coconuts, made the crossing. That theory of very far in the realm of speculation but it's a fun theory.
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Coconuts were introduced to the Caribbean region by humans. They didn’t just float there.
40Great, now I don't know what to believe
19They were actually carried by birds. See this documentary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4_9kDO3q0w&t=44 /s
16You always believe the latest thing presented to you, no matter how ridiculous. It was obviously the very same time travelers who masquerade as pyramid building aliens, whom are also responsible for Winnipeg, the Harlem shake, and the noble platypus. Getting all willy nilly with the coconuts, fuckin degens.
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Just on statistics, it seems unlikely that in the period of time that coconuts have been floating around that they would only have made it there about the same time as explorers. Surely if they could make it there floating then they would have much earlier.
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This is nonsense. Coconuts were spread by humans.
Such an origin indicates that the coconuts were not introduced naturally, such as by sea currents. The researchers concluded that it was brought by early Austronesian sailors to the Americas from at least 2,250 BP, and may be proof of pre-Columbian contact between Austronesian cultures and South American cultures.
22Git outta here wit yer wet blanket of historical accuracy! 😛
3
"Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?"
12How many coconuts sacrificed their lives to achieve colonising the new lands?
Its a level of reproductive attrition rivalling a teenage boy's bedroom sock
6If they came from Asia to the Caribbean via the Pacific, how did they traverse North America? If they came via the Atlantic, how did they traverse Europe, the Mediterranean, or Africa?
4They were carried by knights who didn't have horses.
2The Panama Canal, obviously
1
500 years seems quite short if it happened naturally
3"Where's the fucking soil."
3Permanently Deleted
2No one considers the coconut anymore 😔
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