Say What? Chicken Bones Suggest Polynesians Found Americas Before Cristoforo Colombo

Popular history holds that Europeans made contact with the Americas in 1492, with some arguing that Cristoforo Colombo and his crew were the first outsiders to reach the New World. But chicken bones recently unearthed on the coast of Chile—dating prior to "Columbus"’ “discovery” of America and resembling the DNA of a fowl species native to Polynesia—may challenge that notion.

Chickens could not have gotten to South America on their own—they had to be taken by humans. Polynesians made contact with the west coast of South America............ as much as a century before any Spanish conquistadors. Oh, dip.

The chicken bones were discovered at an archaeological site called El Arenal, on the south coast of Chile, alongside other materials belonging to the indigenous population. While chickens aren’t native to the region, it was believed the local Araucana species found there now was brought to the Americas by Spanish settlers around 1500. Tests on the bones, however, now indicate the birds arrived well before any European made landfall in South America.

They somehow found out the chicken bones were clearly from before to 1492, noting that it could have ranged anywhere from 1304 to 1424. Yeah, that was way before my boy Cristoforo Colombo. Fuck, foiled again. Damn those fast-actin' Polynesians!

This very well may be the most tangible, but this isn’t the first evidence that pre-Colombian voyages from the Pacific to South America were possible.

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