Debating the Philippine-Marianas voyaging connection ca 1500 B.C: History lessons for archaeologists (154)
An exciting event happened in the pages of Antiquity over 2011-2013—a debate between two camps of archaeologists on an issue involving history.
It started with the article of ANU archaeologist Hsiao-chun Hung, et al., “The first settlement of Remote Oceania: the Philippines to the Marianas”[Antiquity 85 (2011)] which asserted that the settlement of the Marianas occurred through a direct voyage from the Philippines ca.1500 B.C.
The paper provoked opposition. Olaf Winter, et al [Antiquity 86 (2012)] argued that a direct passage from the Philippines to the Marianas “is improbable in the light of prevailing sailing conditions and historical record of voyages.” Scott M. Fitzpatrick and Richard T. Callaghan [Antiquity 87 (2013)] went further, declaring that their computer simulation of a direct voyage from the Philippines to the Marianas yielded “zero probability.”
Unbeknown to Winter et al and Fitzpatrick and Callaghan, the very same debate on the navigational viability of a direct voyage from the Philippines to the Marianas had been definitively settled—as the historical record attests—over 300 years ago!
I shall proceed by laying out the historical evidence and then tackle the vexing conundrum of how accomplished archaeologists could miss this readily available historical record.
