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Contact with the indigenous people of the Americas occurred by foreigners who landed on both coasts before the arrival of Columbus. Evidence for Polynesian contacts on the west coast of the Americas has been mounting in the past few years. In this talk I will discuss the evidence from prehistoric sweet potatoes, bottle gourds, fishhooks, canoes and chickens for contact. It will be shown that there were opportunities for meetings, trade and exchange and diffusion of technology and language without a large scale impact on either culture. Explanations involving long distance contacts from Asia or lost continents are not necessary to explain these meetings as the Polynesians have a well documented history of sailing, exploring and eastward expansion.
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Alice Storey has received her Ph.D. from the University of Auckland in Biological Anthropology, and her M.A. in Biomolecular Archaeology from Simon Fraser University. Her areas of specialization are the settlement of the Pacific, ancient DNA, and Oceanic cannibalism. She has conducted fieldwork in Fiji (Sigatoka) and Vancouver, has published a number of articles on her research.