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Contrary to the arguments of some that much of the pacific was settled
by Polynesians accidentally marooned after being lost and adrift, it seems reasonable that this feat was accomplished by deliberate colonization
expeditions that set out fully stocked with food and domesticated plants and animals. Detailed studies of the winds and currents using computer simulations suggest that drifting canoes would have been a most unlikely means of
colonizing the Pacific. These expeditions were likely driven by population growth and political dynamics on the home islands, as well as the challenge and excitement of exploring unknown waters.
Because all Polynesians, Micronesians, and many Melanesians speak
Austronesian languages and grow crops derived from Southeast Asia, all these peoples most certainly derived from that region and not the New World or elsewhere. The undisputed pre-Columbian presence in Oceania of the sweet potato, which is a New World domesticate, has sometimes been used to support Heyerdahl's “American Indians in the Pacific” theories. However, this is one plant out of a long list of Southeast Asian domesticates. As Patrick Kirch, an American anthropologist, points out, rather than being brought by rafting South Americans, sweet potatoes might just have easily been brought back by returning Polynesian navigators who could have reached the west coast of South America.
12. Why does the author mention the views of “Patrick Kirch” ? A. To present evidence in favor of Heyerdahl’ s idea about American Indians reaching Oceania
B. To emphasize the familiarity of Pacific islanders with crops from many different regions of the world
C. To indicate that supposed proof for Heyerdahl’ s theory has an alternative explanation
D. To demonstrate that some of the same crops were cultivated in both South America and Oceania
Speculation on the origin of these Pacific islanders began as soon as outsiders encountered them, in the absence of solid linguistic, archaeological, and biological data, many fanciful and mutually exclusive theories were
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devised. Pacific islanders are variously thought to have come from North
America, South America, Egypt, Israel, and India,
as well as Southeast Asia.— Many older theories implicitly deprecated the navigational abilities and overall cultural creativity of the Pacific islanders. For example, British anthropologists G. Elliot Smith and W. J. Perry assumed that only Egyptians would have been skilled enough to navigate and colonize the Pacific.■ They inferred
that the Egyptians even crossed the Pacific to found the great civilizations of the New World (North and South America). | In 1947 Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl drifted on a balsa-log raft westward with the winds and currents across the Pacific from South America to prove his theory that Pacific islanders were Native Americans (also called American Indians). Later Heyerdahl suggested that the Pacific was peopled by three migrations: by Native Americans from the Pacific Northwest of North America drifting to Hawaii, by Peruvians drifting to Easter Island, and by Melanesians. In 1969 he crossed the Atlantic in an Egyptian-style reed boat to prove Egyptian influences in the Americas. Contrary to these theorists, the overwhelming evidence of physical anthropology, linguistics, and archaeology shows that the Pacific islanders came from Southeast Asia and were skilled enough as navigators to sail against the prevailing winds and currents.
13. Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage. Where could the sentence best fit? Later theories concentrate on journeys in the other direction. 14. Choices do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage. This question is worth 2 points. Together, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia make up the region described as the Pacific islands, or Oceania.
A. The first Europeans to reach the area assumed that the islands’ original inhabitants must have drifted to Oceania, perhaps from Egypt or the Americas.
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B. It is now believed that the process of colonization required a great
deal of skill, determination, and planning and could not have happened by chance.
C. Using linguistic and archaeological evidence, anthropologists have determined that the first Pacific islanders were Austronesian people from Southeast Asia.
D. New evidence suggests that, rather than being isolated, Pacific islanders engaged in trade and social interaction with peoples living in Southeast Asia. E. Computer simulations of the winds and currents in the Pacific have shown that reaching the Pacific islands was probably much easier than previously thought.
F. Although early colonizers of the islands probably came from
agriculture-based societies, they were obliged to adopt an economy based on fishing.