Talk:Polynesian navigation

This page appears to have been copied from http://academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Navigation. The source site makes its contents available through the GFDL. --Butseriouslyfolks 21:10, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

No. Please see WP:MIRROR. In fact, the page you refer to above was copied from Wikipedia, not the other way around, and you can see that in the page history. —Viriditas | Talk 00:56, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Compass

The fact the Europeans were navigating with a compass is treated as an atrocious crime in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.22.218.188 (talk) 14:42, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Chinese seem to have been using a magnetic compass for navigation before Europeans, with no critical remarks about this in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.22.218.188 (talk) 14:51, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Dispersal of plants

"A simpler explanation posits biological dispersal; plants and/or seeds could float across the Pacific without any human contact."

Not likely at all in the case of the sweet potato. Even coconuts have a limited range, but sweet potatoes couldn't make it across the Pacific on their own. ...unsigned comment by User:MacRusgail

Although unlikely, Bulmer and others have suggested that it is possible that the dispersal could be by birds. In a 2008 paper here [1] "The sweet potato is a plant native to the Americas, and its pre-historic presence in Polynesia is a long-standing anthropological problem. Here we use computer-driven drift simulations to model the trajectories of vessels and seed pods departing from a segment of coast between Mexicoand Chile. The experiments demonstrate that accidental drift voyages could have been the mechanism responsible for the pre-historic introduction of the sweet potato from the Americas to Polynesia. While present results do not relate to the feasibility of a transfer by purposeful navigation, they do indicate that this type of voyaging is not required in order to explain the introduction of the crop into Polynesia. The relatively high probability of occurrence and relatively short crossing times of trips from Northern Chile and Peru into the Marquesas, Tuamotu and Society groups are in agreement with the general consensus that this region encompasses the area of original arrival and subsequent dispersal of the sweet potato in Polynesia" Journal of Archaeological Science xx (2007) 1-13 "Modeling the prehistoric arrival of the sweet potato in Polynesia" >Alvaro Montenegro*, Chris Avis, Andrew Weaver. Dougweller (talk) 20:43, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

That is interesting, how about we restore the sentence starting 'A simpler explanation posits...' to the article with that as a source. Kahuroa (talk) 23:56, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

done Kahuroa (talk) 20:59, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Historical Recreations

Many of the "facts" about polynesian navigation have been seriously undermined by modern "recreations".Many of these were made with modern tools and are use a mixture of natural and manmade materials.Lewis carried a modern sectant with him to check his postion.One boat had a 8hp Yamaha outboard which was extensively used.Another boat was towed more than half the way to its destination by a modern vessel.Most of the recent boats have carried modern food plus communications and safety equipment.These faked voyages undermine attempts to show the validity of Polynesion navigation methods.One crew tried to keep their faked voyage secret but were sprung when the Nz Airforce took pictures of them at sea being towed.Their lame excuse was they didnt want to be late.