page_title: Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories
section_title: Similarity of features
hierarchical_section_title: Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories / Claims of Polynesian contact / Similarity of features
caption_attribution_description: Aerial view of Isla Mocha
context_page_description: Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories speculate about possible visits to or interactions with the Americas, the indigenous peoples of the Americas, or both, by people from Africa, Asia, Europe, or Oceania at a time prior to Christopher Columbus' first voyage to the Caribbean in 1492. Such contact is accepted as having occurred in prehistory during the human migrations that led to the original settlement of the Americas, but has been hotly debated in the historic period.
  Only one historical case of pre-Columbian contact is widely accepted among the scientific and scholarly mainstream. Maritime explorations by Norse peoples from Scandinavia during the late 10th century led to the Norse colonization of Greenland and of L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, which preceded Columbus' arrival in the Americas by some 500 years. There is also significant evidence of material exchange between the peoples of Siberia and Alaska dating at least five centuries before Columbus' travels to the New World. Genetic evidence presented in 2020 found that some eastern Polynesian populations have admixture from coastal northern South American peoples, with an estimated contact around 1200 CE.
context_section_description: In December 2007, several human skulls were found in a museum in Concepción, Chile. These skulls originated from Mocha Island, an island just off the coast of Chile in the Pacific Ocean, formerly inhabited by the Mapuche. Craniometric analysis of the skulls, according to Lisa Matisoo-Smith of the University of Otago and José Miguel Ramírez Aliaga of the Universidad de Valparaíso, suggests that the skulls have "Polynesian features" – such as a pentagonal shape when viewed from behind, and rocker jaws.
caption: Mocha Island off the coast of Arauco Peninsula, Chile
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