Trans-Pacific Contact: A History of Ideas on the Oceania- Americas Connection

Abstract

This thesis brings together theories of pre-Columbian trans-Pacific contact between Oceania and the Americas and analyses them from a history of ideas perspective. Despite the limited factual evidence, trans-Pacific contact theories between the Americas and Oceania have been discussed in various forms since the sixteenth century and remain a persistent trope. To provide a context for the history of ideas of trans-Pacific contact involving the Americas and Oceania, this thesis addresses the changing conceptions of the Pacific according to scholars from Europe and the Americas, the development of science and later anthropology and archaeology in this region and in the Americas, and the growing understanding of the history of settlement of the Americas and the Pacific. The theories addressed herein include ideas about Polynesia (or other parts of the Pacific) being settled by Amerindians; ideas about the Americas being settled by Polynesians or other Pacific Islanders; crop and animal diffusion in either direction; and cultural diffusion and contact theories. An analysis of the history and current status of the trans-Pacific contact debate shows that new additions to scientific knowledge have been obscured and resulted in an inconclusive and repetitive intellectual trajectory. This thesis proposes a historiographical revision and contextualisation of the theories and evidence in order to contribute to a clearer progression of ideas for one of the most resilient debates in the history of archaeology: the problem of trans-Pacific contacts.