A long-debated discussion in coastal North American archaeology is the possible evidence for cultural contact between the Chumash and Gabrielino cultures of southern California's coast and islands, and Polynesian seafarers. In 2005, Terry Jones and Kathryn Klar presented a modern argument for contact occurring between about 400 and 900 AD, based on the co-occurrence of plank-sewn canoes and two-piece bone fishhooks at Chumash/Gabrielino sites beginning about 800-1000 AD. Both of these characteristics are part of Polynesian sea-faring.
The ancestors of the Chumash first settled southern California perhaps as long ago as 12,000 years, at sites such as Eel Point on San Clemente island, and sites on San Miguel and Santa Rosa islands off the California coast. Hunter-gatherer-fishers, the Chumash undoubtedly used some form of sailing vessel to reach the islands off California even then. Most scholars believe the earliest vessels were likely simple balsa (reed) rafts. By the time of the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, the Chumash were using tomolos, sophisticated plank-sewn water craft. However, the technology to produce such canoes (wedges, perforating instruments, abraders and bitumen sealant) has been identified at the 8000-year-old Eel Point site, and the date of inception is unclear.
Plank Canoes and Fishhooks
The plank canoe, called tomolo by the historic Chumash and Gabrielino-speaking people, was built of hand-hewn planks, sewn together with cordage and caulked with asphaltum sealer. Canoes ranged to 25 feet long and could carry 10-12 people. They were used to fish, trade, and carry passengers between the California coast and the Channel Islands. Solid evidence for the use of the tomolo canoe appears no later than ca AD 700-800, and its presence on Chumash sites is marked by a dietary upswing in the use of swordfish, albacore and other tuna. Some archaeological evidence suggests that the tomolo canoe is much older, with dates ranging between 1500 years ago and 8500 years ago.
Polynesian canoes were double and single-hulled, with sails. They commonly were quite a bit larger than Chumash canoes, between 15 and 30 meters in length. Plank construction is believed to have been used during the colonization of the Polynesian triangle, and the sewing technique is documented in Polynesia at least as early as AD 800-1200.
The ancestors of the Chumash had long used shell and bone fishhooks (~7000 years), but about AD 900, they began using bi-pointed compound fishhooks, built of two pieces of bone cemented together with asphaltum. Polynesian compound hooks date between AD 300 and 900.
The Theory
What Jones and Klar propose is not that the Chumash learned sailing craft from the Polynesians, but rather that aspects of maritime subsistence were adopted by the Chumash after that contact. Additional evidence comparing linguistic terms for Chumash boats and Polynesian woodworking terms exists; see the literature for that discussion.
Jones and Klar's arguments are not universally accepted by any means (for one thing, the dates for evidence of the first use of plank canoes seems to belong to the Chumash), but they do provide part of an increasingly strong argument supporting pre-Columbian trans-Pacific voyages to the Americas by Polynesia seafarers.
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to the Trans-Pacific Connections and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Anderson A. 2006. Polynesian Seafaring And American Horizons: A Response To Jones And Klar. American Antiquity 71(4):759-765.
Arnold JE. 1992. Complex hunter-gatherer-fishers of prehistoric California: Chiefs, specialists, and maritime adaptations of the Channel Islands. American Antiquity 57(1):60-84.
Arnold JE. 2007. Credit Where Credit Is Due: The History of the Chumash Oceangoing Plank Canoe. American Antiquity 72(2):196-209.
Cassidy J, Raab LM, and Kononeko NA. 2004. Boats, Bones, and Bifaces: The Early Holocene Mariners of Eel Point, San Clemente Island, California. American Antiquity 69(1):109-130.
Fagan B. 2004. The House of the Sea: An Essay on the Antiquity of Planked Canoes in Southern California. American Antiquity 69(1):7-16.
Gamble LH. 2002. Archaeological Evidence for the Origin of the Plank Canoe in North America. American Antiquity 67(2):301-316.
Gamble LH, Walker PL, and Russell GS. 2002. Further Considerations on the Emergence of Chumash Chiefdoms. American Antiquity 67(4):772-777.
Jones TL, and Klar KA. 2005. Diffusionism Reconsidered: Linguistic and Archaeological Evidence for Prehistoric Polynesian Contact with Southern California. American Antiquity 70(3):457-484.
Jones TL, and Klar KA. 2006. On Open Minds and Missed Marks: A Response to Atholl Anderson. American Antiquity 71(4):765-771.
Landberg LCW. 1966. Tuna Tagging and the Extra-Oceanic Distribution of Curved, Single-Piece Shell Fishhooks in the Pacific. American Antiquity 31(4):485-493.
