Polynesian Migration

Polynesian Migration

The two theories I have chosen to compare are South America and Asia. Some people believe they come from Asia and others believe they come from South America.

A theorist named Thor Heyerdahl believes that Polynesians come from South America because one part of evidence is that He noticed that the wind and Ocean currents from the east may have pushed travellers to the pacific. Another part of evidence is that He discovered huge statues of some of the ancient civilisations of South America.  He also constructed a boat called the kon-tiki he sailed on the raft  for 101 days to test his theory, and it washed up on raroia, an island in Eastern Polynesian. The last part of evidence is that the kumara found in New Zealand was also found in South America.

The next theory about Polynesians being originated in Asia was believed by many theorists because there was found to be a lot of different types of evidence such as the first part of evidence is Language, A lot of the Asian language is similar throughout the pacific. We belong to the Austronesian family of languages, e.g.. When counting from 1 - 10. Another piece of evidence is Food Most common food like taro, yams and banana come from Asia. The next piece of evidence is Pottery, Lapita pottery can be found at various sites from the Philippines, through Melanesian, to Samoa and Tonga. The last piece of evidence is Religious Beliefs, On every island from Samoa to Easter island, from Hawaiki to New Zealand there are traditionals.

These theories do not have any similarities but to me the Asia one is much more believable because the language part is such as the counting being similar is better evidence than all  the South American theory evidence.