Con-ticci and the Bennett Monolith of Mocachi

In the late nineteenth century, the Spanish scholar Marcos Jiménez de la Espada presented his ideas about the Inca god Ticiviracocha or Viracocha at the third International Congress of Americanists. He argued that a group of white men had reached South America via a maritime route on the coast of Arica (Chile) or Arequipa (Peru). In 1932, more than half a century later, American anthropologist Wendell Clark (W.C.) Bennett participated in archaeological excavations in the southern highlands of the Andes where a series of stone monoliths were discovered. One of these monolithic statues, known as the Bennett Monolith of Mocachi, was included on the sail of Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki raft. This paper explores two important elements of Heyerdahl’s trans-Pacific contact theory: Kon-Tiki and ‘white bearded men’. First, it argues that a similar idea to Heyerdahl’s conjecture about ‘white bearded men’ in the Americas was explored by the nineteenth-century Americanist scholar Marcos Jiménez de la Espada, albeit with a different interpretation surrounding Con-ticci and arguably unbeknownst to him. Secondly, it explores and contrasts Heyerdahl’s differing view about the presence of a beard on a monolithic statue from Bolivia with the perspectives of its discoverer W.C. Bennett in 1932, and the Argentine scholar José Imbelloni. While it appears that Heyerdahl was not aware of Jiménez de la Espada’s work, his apparent resolute interpretation of Bennett’s ‘Monolith of Mocachi’ as bearded caused much controversy among South American academics. It even led to Bennett’s explication of how a simplified labelling to distinguish the monolith in question in relation to others led to Heyerdahl’s regard as advancing an erroneous conception surrounding the presence of ‘bearded white men’ on this continent prior to Columbus. The name Kon-Tiki was a stylization of part of the name of the Inca deity ‘Con Ticci’ and that of the Polynesian deity ‘Tiki’.

Introduction

The 1950s marked a turning point in the popularization of trans-Pacific contact theories following Thor Heyerdahl’s 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition. An earlier publication prior to this voyage, and those afterwards, posited that two pre-Columbian migration waves from the Americas, one from North America and one from South America, had resulted in the initial settlement of Polynesia, contributing important elements to its culture (Heyerdahl 1941:15–26). Heyerdahl (1914–2002), a voyager, migration theorist and writer, first studied zoology at Oslo University in his native Norway, but never earned a degree (Melander 2019a:379–396). He initially conducted library research on Polynesian history and culture, which resulted in his attempt to identify areas where Polynesians could have originated from. He later conducted research on North and South American archaeology, history and culture, and also participated in archaeological excavations in some of these areas. His principal hypothesis was that the Pacific had been navigable in pre-Columbian times from the Americas to Polynesia. According to Heyerdahl, certain Caucasian-like inhabitants settled in the Americas before major ‘civilizations’ developed there (Heyerdahl 1950:17). They then migrated and became the first wave of settlers of Polynesia from the Americas. In Heyerdahl’s view, these emigrants from the Americas possessed sufficient navigational and sailing techniques to be able to sail across the eastern Pacific.

In 1950, Heyerdahl posited that Polynesia might have been first settled from the Americas by ‘white bearded chiefs’ who had arrived in Peru before the Incas. He appears to have derived this idea from Spanish colonial ideas that stemmed from South American oral traditions. According to Heyerdahl,

They [the Indigenous Inca] told the Spaniards that the colossal monuments that stood deserted about the landscape were erected by a race of white gods which had lived there before the Incas themselves had become rulers. These vanished architects were described as wise, peaceful instructors, who had originally come from the north, long ago in the morning of time, and had taught the Incas’ primitive forefathers architecture and agriculture as well as manners and customs. They were unlike other Indians in having white skins and long beards; they were also taller than the Incas.

(Heyerdahl 1950:17)

Heyerdahl held that these ‘white bearded chiefs’, or pre-Incas, were one of two groups from the Americas that migrated to Polynesia. The second was from British Columbia to Hawai‘i around A.D. 1000 (Heyerdahl 1941:18). He also believed that “the white chief-god Sun Tiki, whom the Incas declared that their forefathers had driven out from Peru, on to the Pacific, was identical with the white chief-god Tiki, son of the sun, whom the inhabitants of all the Pacific islands hailed as the original founder of their race” (Heyerdahl 1941:19). Initially derived from his pre-war travel experiences in French Polynesia, Heyerdahl’s theory was principally anchored in nineteenth- and early twentieth century research and travelogues. His ideas about the seaworthiness of balsa rafts and about ‘white bearded men’ stemmed from sixteenth to eighteenth century chronicles and travelogues. Heyerdahl’s inclusion of early Spanish chronicles authored by missionaries and explorers in his research started much later, after the Kon-Tiki expedition (Heyerdahl 1968b:92–121).

Heyerdahl’s claims emerged at a time of rejection of arguments supporting the idea that Amerindians had ‘ocean-going vessels’ (Solsvik 2012:71). It was Heyerdahl’s interest to disprove “this widespread belief, introduced by [American archaeologist] Samuel K. Lothrop’s study entitled ‘Aboriginal Navigation off the West Coast of South America’ (1932), that balsa-rafts would sink after two weeks at sea” (Solsvik 2012:71; referencing Lothrop 1932:229–256). In addition to Heyerdahl’s idea that Polynesians had their origins in the Americas, his desire to be taken seriously by academia and prove his hypothesis drove him to carry out the Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947 (Solsvik 2012:71). Heyerdahl defended his central argument, that Polynesia was settled from the Americas before receiving later Austronesian migrations, in multiple publications and conference presentations, most notably American Indians in the Pacific: The Theory behind the Kon-Tiki Expedition (Heyerdahl 1952).

On White Men and the Pre-Columbian Sign of the Cross in Peru

Beliefs about the presence of white men in the Americas prior to Columbus preceded Heyerdahl. Early examples uncited, though not necessarily unread, by Heyerdahl include papers presented at the third session of the International Congress of Americanists in Brussels in 1879. In one session, Abbé Schmitz argued for “traces of Christianity and the white man in America before its discovery by Christopher Columbus” (Schmitz 1968 [1879]:493–506). In another, Marcos Jiménez de la Espada (1831–1898), one of the major Americanists of the nineteenth century, presented a paper ‘On white men and the pre-Columbian sign of the cross in Peru’ (Jiménez de la Espada 1968 [1879]:526–650). Jiménez de la Espada’s Americanist interest and scholarly expertise may have prompted the development of ties shown in some correspondence with fellow Americanist Sir Clements Markham (1830–1916). Jiménez de la Espada was a Spanish naturalist and important member of the Pacific Scientific Commission (Comisión Científica del Pacífico), a royal commission in charge of surveying former Spanish colonies between 1862 and 1865, derived from Alexander von Humboldt’s work in the Americas, and principally driven by the gold rush in California and Australia. Jiménez de la Espada’s participation in this commission sparked his interest in the anthropology of the Americas, particularly of Peru (López-Ocón 2003:484–485). In addition to Markham, his theory that the Pacific Islands had served as stepping stones to reach the Americas was also explored in several other publications from the nineteenth century by writers like the Chilean naturalist Juan Ignacio Molina and the Scottish scholar John Dunmore Lang (Lang 1877:3; Molina 1965 [1821]:25–35).

Jiménez de la Espada summarized various sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish chronicles from South America containing details about the Inca god Ticiviracocha or Viracocha (Jiménez de la Espada 1968 [1879]:526–641). In his 1879 paper titled ‘Del hombre blanco y signo de la cruz precolombianos en el Perú’ (‘On white men and the pre-Columbian sign of the cross in Peru’), Jiménez de la Espada argued that a group of white men had arrived via a maritime route to parts of South America including Arica, Chile or Arequipa, Peru. Their original name was unknown, but they were referred to as Viracochas in the Quechua language. This name, Jiménez de la Espada claimed, was later associated with certain deities like Con, Ticci, Illa Ticci and Pachacamac (creator of the world), thus complicating both the interpretation of the original name and ideas about the supposed arrival of white men in South America (Jiménez de la Espada 1968 [1879]:642–650).

The Bennett Monolith of Mocachi

In 1932, between the months of March and September, a group of US scholars including John G. Phillips and W.C. Bennett (1905–1953) “surveyed the archaeological possibilities of the altiplano of Bolivia and southern region of Peru” (Bennett 1934:361). Their aim was to continue the work of American anthropologist Dr. Ronald L. Olson (1895–1979), “and to retrace the steps of [Swiss archaeologist] Adolph F. Bandelier [(1840–1914)] to understand better his extensive notes and collections now in the American Museum of Natural History” (Bennett 1934:361). In 1934, Bennett published a report which only covered the excavation in Tiwanaku, Bolivia given its archaeological importance in this South American nation. In Bennett’s words, this was due to the fact that:

… the Tiahuanaco [Tiwanaku] site is without doubt the most important archaeological center in Bolivia, and since our work revealed ceramic stratigraphy of importance to the whole Andean problem, it is this section of our work which is the subject matter for the present paper.

(Bennett 1934:361)

Fig. 1.

Monolithic statues discovered by Bennett in Bolivia in 1932. The small statue on the right, Bennett’s Monolith of Mocachi, is an important element of Heyerdahl’s thesis.

It was at this site that Bennett was reported to have discovered two side-by-side statues, as depicted in Figure 1. Both of these statues were found buried in Pit VII (out of X) excavated in an area called Acapana where a series of temples used to stand. The large statue measured 7.30 meters long, including a base of 1.80 meters. The smaller one, described as ‘bearded’ by Bennett, measured 2.55 meters in length. As described by Bennett, the facial features of the smaller monolithic statue consisted of two lightning rays on the forehead which continued “down the sides of the head, joining the T-shaped nose, and running into the beard which surrounds the mouth. This beard, in high relief, curls up on each side of the mouth and forms a point on the chin” (Bennett 1934:441). Bennett’s study could not provide a chronology of these statues; however, he noted that they were of late Tiahuanaco style and were not contemporaneous, that is, they were brought in from other areas. Five other sculpted and unsculpted stone objects were found scattered around these two monoliths.

The Inception of Heyerdahl’s Ideas About Trans-Pacific Contact

Heyerdahl contended that Polynesia was settled from the Americas in pre-Columbian times, prior to a second migration wave of ‘Maori-Polynesians’ around A.D. 1000 from North America (Heyerdahl 1952; also see Melander 2017:79; Melander 2019a:380–381; Melander 2020). This theory maintained that ‘white bearded men’ from the OldWorld had settled parts of the Americas during the Early Formative Period of the Olmec civilization. According to Heyerdahl, these fair-skinned ‘culture-bearers’ were “step-pyramid builders, sun-worshippers, transoceanic voyagers, and stone tool users” whose influences could be observed amongst the Aztecs, Incas, and Maya (Melander 2019a:380–381), and who were also influenced by several ancient cultures from this geographical area. Heyerdahl claimed that they later settled in Polynesia around A.D. 500, departing from the vicinity of Tiwanaku in present-day Bolivia. He saw their influences in Polynesia in legends and archaeological remains, including the ‘large anthropomorphic stone statues’ found in eastern Polynesian islands, particularly Rapa Nui (Melander 2019a:380–381). Heyerdahl also subsequently theorized that another group from the Indus Valley may have settled in South America (Heyerdahl 1979).

As evidence, Heyerdahl cited reports in sixteenth-century Spanish chronicles of sightings of balsa rafts, voyages to unknown lands in the South Sea (notably Túpac Yupanqui’s return voyage), and coastal arrivals from unknown lands (Heyerdahl 1952:558–566). Although less well-known beyond academia, similar ideas had been proposed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by scholars like the British missionary William Ellis (1794–1872), the British ethnologist Charles Hill-Tout (1858–1944), and Jiménez de la Espada (Alcina Franch 1985:64). Heyerdahl referred to most of these in detail in American Indians in the Pacific (1952), however his thesis was robustly motivated by a description of Marquesan ancestral legends narrated to him by the local elder Tei Te‘atua Kipote (c. 1865–?) in 1937 (Melander 2019a:379–380). This encounter took place during Heyerdahl’s stay in Fatu Hiva, in the Marquesas, with his first wife, then known as Liv Heyerdahl (1916–1969) (Heyerdahl 1974; Melander 2019a:379–380). Heyerdahl took his journey in order to try living a ‘primitive’, or ‘proto-hippy’ life with minimal possessions and distractions, and to demonstrate how easy it was to do so for a modern European man (Heyerdahl 1974; McIntyre 2002:41; Melander 2019a:381–382).

According to the Italian-born Argentine anthropologist José Imbelloni (1885–1967), Con-ticci-uira-cocha was traditionally the complete name for the supreme being who was associated with the four elements of fire, earth, wind and water, whereas Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki was a “character, a common hero to the peoples of the Americas and Polynesia, the legendary Tiki hero” or first man in creation (Imbelloni 1956:402–403). Imbelloni added that most Peruvian scholars held that uira-cocha was the real name of this being and conticci were adjectives. Heyerdahl, however, believed the exact opposite: that con-ticci was the genuine and original name of this supreme being and that this name was later replaced by Wiracocha (Viracocha) (Heyerdahl 1952:238–241; Imbelloni 1956:402–403). The name Kon-Tiki was a stylization of part of the name of the Inca deity ‘Con Ticci’, and that of the Polynesian deity ‘Tiki’.

An important element of Heyerdahl’s trans-Pacific contact theory was his consideration of the importance of beards, or beard ornaments amongst the pre-Inca Nazca culture (Heyerdahl 1952:310–314). Heyerdahl reflected on the significance and possible interpretations of this facial feature amongst effigies and other artistic representations from this geographical area of South America. However, his apparent mistaken interpretation of certain statues from Tiwanaku, Bolivia, as ‘bearded’, particularly one discovered and reported by the American anthropologist Wendell Clark (W.C.) Bennett (1905–1953) (Bennett 1934:440–441), which was featured on Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki raft sail, became analogous with his theory. Although described as ‘bearded’ by Bennett, these features were interpreted as nose-rings by Imbelloni and reported as such also by the Swedish scholar Stig Rydén (1908–1965) (Rydén 1949; Imbelloni 1956:401–416). Imbelloni demonstrated his point in a reconstruction of one of these statues by the Argentine sculptors Joaquin Da Fonseca and Carlos Benvenuto (Imbelloni 1956:408). Figure 2 illustrates this reconstruction as it featured in a 1956 publication by Imbelloni, which critiqued Heyerdahl’s theory and scholarship.

Fig. 2.

Reconstruction of the Tiwanaku statue by Heyerdahl (left) and Benvenuto (right) (source: Imbelloni 1956:408).

According to Imbelloni, Heyerdahl published his own reconstruction of this same statue as ‘bearded’, and even included it as an image on one of the sails for the Kon-Tiki raft (Heyerdahl 1952:295–303). As noted by Imbelloni:

when publishing his 1934 work [Bennett] did not suspect the series of inaccuracies and fantasies that would accumulate and strengthen during the fifteen years that followed, as a consequence of the incorrect representation of the [Bennett] monolith [from Mochachi] [ … ], as well as of his rushed and imprecise description of the face, where the word ‘bearded’ appeared for the first time.

(Imbelloni 1956:408–409, referencing Bennett 1934:440–441)

In a letter to Rydén, Bennett clarified his stance by claiming that he had described the statues as ‘bearded’ “essentially for descriptive purposes to distinguish them from the flat carved pillar-like statues of the earlier Tiahuanaco [Tiwanaku] construction” (Imbelloni 1956:409). Bennett recognized that the band around the mouth that he had mistakenly described as a beard was actually a nose ring, stemming from the iconographies on pottery and textiles from the Nazca area, as well as gold and silver specimens found in the same region (Imbelloni 1956:409). In contrast, however, Heyerdahl reflected on these nose rings and concluded that they were actually used by priests and the nobility to imitate beards, and that they would best be described as ‘beard-ornaments’ (Heyerdahl 1952:310–314).

In Imbelloni’s view, however, Heyerdahl’s misreading of the statues as ‘bearded’ was related to his conjectural linking of the Inca god Con Ticci Viracocha to an ancient pre-Inca civilization of bearded white men from the Old World (Heyerdahl 1952:232–241). This presumption formed part of Heyerdahl’s main thesis, which he detailed, refined and defended in more than fifty publications and conference presentations, nine of which were presented at the International Congress of Americanists: in 1952 (three papers), 1954, 1958, 1960, 1962 and 1966 (Heyerdahl 1953a:72–76; 1953b:76–81; 1953c:81–85; 1955a:685–697; 1959:333–340; 1962:789–795; 1964a:133–142; 1966:93–104; 1968a:67–88).

Heyerdahl’s misinterpretation of the Bennett Monolith from Mocachi added to his negative academic reputation in Argentina’s academic network. Imbelloni’s fierce critique of Heyerdahl exemplifies his contentious regard amongst Argentina’s academic circles. Imbelloni’s 1956 work La segunda esfinge indiana contains a whole chapter critiquing Heyerdahl’s views (Imbelloni 1956:402–428).

Discussion

This paper argues that two of the principal elements of Heyerdahl’s trans-Pacific contact thesis, Kon Tiki and migrations by ‘white bearded men’ were crafted from misinterpretations or erroneous perspectives. Despite Heyerdahl’s slight modifications to his theory, he is best remembered for proposing that East Polynesia was settled from the Americas prior to the arrival of the Polynesians, who brought their own culture. Heyerdahl’s basic theory, however, underwent slight modifications over time. In publications subsequent to American Indians in the Pacific (1952), he no longer only insisted that Polynesia had been settled from the Americas, but also strongly contended that South American balsa rafts were sufficiently solid to traverse the Pacific, favoured by prevailing winds, and that, following their traditions, the Incas informed the Spanish about lands to the west, which inspired the voyages of Mendaña and Quirós (Heyerdahl 1955b:251–264; Heyerdahl 1964b; Heyerdahl 1968b). According to Heyerdahl, the original inhabitants of Polynesia were islanders of Andean origin, that is, ‘white bearded men’ who deserted their pre-Inca settlements in South America. In Heyerdahl’s view, these were the first inhabitants of East Polynesia, dotting these lands with their megalithic cultures prior to the arrival of Polynesians from the west (Heyerdahl 1961:28; Melander 2019a:380–381). In 1961, Heyerdahl noted how, given the “racial and cultural sub-stratum throughout much of Polynesia, [ … ] the ancestors of the present Polynesian stock [ … ] were not the true discoverers of these islands” (Heyerdahl 1961:28). In the preface to Early Man and the Ocean (1979), Heyerdahl further clarified his stance by claiming that:

Most of the controversy [over human migration routes and cultural origins stemming from the Kon-Tiki and Ra expeditions] has been based on the erroneous belief that the captain of the balsa raft Kon-Tiki and the papyrus ships Ra I and Ra II had made the claim that the Maori-Polynesians had descended from the Incas of Peru, and that the Incas, Aztecs and Mayas had descended from the pyramid builders of ancient Egypt. Such theories are easy to refute, but have never been advanced either in my travel books or scientific volumes.

(Heyerdahl 1979:7)

Heyerdahl’s argument that Polynesia was settled from the Americas, the thesis he is best known for, was hotly contested from the start (Melander 2019b:1–11). However, numerous critiques classify Heyerdahl as being driven by racialized reasoning, and lack a clear understanding of Heyerdahl’s theory and intellectual context (Solsvik & Stokke 2020:1–12). This paper mostly centers on Imbelloni’s perspectives about Heyerdahl, but it also aims to portray Heyerdahl as an intellectual whose ideas appear to have been based on some erroneous perspectives about certain ancient South American cultural facts, but whose ideas have also been misunderstood and misrepresented.

One of Heyerdahl’s most outspoken critics, the Austrian archaeologist, historian and ethnologist Robert von Heine-Geldern (1885–1968), agreed with the general scholarly consensus that Polynesia had been settled from the west and not the Americas. In 1952, he argued that most of the factors cited by Heyerdahl as evidence for trans-Pacific cultural diffusion from the Americas to Polynesia had Asiatic parallels, thus demonstrating Asian influence in Polynesia (Heyerdahl 1950:20–41; Heine-Geldern 1952a:183). He also discerned Oceanic and Asiatic elements in the Americas, including megalithic monuments and the practice of trepanning which, although found in both Peru and Polynesia, was also common in Indonesia and surrounding areas (Heine-Geldern 1952a:188; Heine-Geldern 1952b:110). Despite reversing the primary direction of settlement, Heine-Geldern was not entirely closed to the idea of certain contacts between Polynesia and the Americas, as evidenced by the South American origins of certain Polynesian words, such as kumara, sweet potato (Heine-Geldern 1952a:183). He praised Heyerdahl’s “brilliant achievement in crossing the Pacific with the raft Kon-Tiki” and acknowledged his additional achievement in considering and giving new significance to several Polynesian traditions that had been either understudied or overlooked (Heine-Geldern 1952a:183, 190). They included a Marquesan tradition about an eastward expedition aboard a double canoe, leading to the discovery of a country called Tafiti, which Heine-Geldern thought might have been South America. Another was a tradition from Rapa Nui recorded by the American scholar William Judah Thomson (1841–1909) (Thomson 1889:526–528). It described how Rapa Nui was discovered and settled by Polynesians who had first voyaged to the east, were faced with a harsh environment, and then headed back to the west, where they reached Rapa Nui. In Heine-Geldern’s view, the climate described by Thomson could be attributed to the coasts of Peru and northern Chile (Heine-Geldern 1952a:190). In summary, Heine-Geldern considered that, although Heyerdahl’s theory of the American settlement of Polynesia was unsustainable, his Kon-Tiki expedition marked “a turning point in the general appraisal of relations between Polynesia and South America [in that he] had shown that such voyages [to the Americas and back] were completely feasible” (Heine-Geldern 1952a:191).

In 1956, Imbelloni vocally opposed Heyerdahl’s principal theory and argued that he was ignoring plentiful evidence that went against the settlement of Polynesia from the Americas, since it was clear that contact had occurred from west to east. However, most critiques paid insufficient attention to one element of Heyerdahl’s reasoning: his contention that it would have been possible to sail westward into the Pacific from the Americas during pre-Columbian times. Since scholars almost universally agree that Polynesia was not settled from the Americas – though the idea of some trans-Pacific contract is widely accepted – Heyerdahl’s theory is no longer given serious consideration amongst academics other than for the purpose of critique and analysis of his persona. In popular culture, however, Heyerdahl’s legacy prevails and there is an element of myth surrounding his persona even today. The understudied or unknown foundations that have been associated with two of the principal foundations of Heyerdahl’s thesis, as examined in this paper, further deconstructs his perspective and assigns a new understanding of Heyerdahl’s interpretation of pre-Columbian trans-Pacific contact between Polynesia and the Americas.

An important player in most of the trans-Pacific contact theories that have emerged is the island of Rapa Nui. Rull (2019:15) has nominated four hypotheses for the discovery and settlement of Rapa Nui: the long-distance dispersal hypothesis, the back-and-forth hypothesis, the Heyerdahl hypothesis, and the newcomers hypothesis. According to Rull (2019:15), none of these theories can be rejected given the current evidence. With this in view, he recommends the use of the multiple working hypotheses framework rather than the ruling theory approach. It then seems important to keep considering some aspects of Heyerdahl’s demonstrations about Trans-Pacific migration, including that some voyages might have been conducted from the east. Indeed, pre-Columbian trans-Pacific contact between South America and Rapa Nui may have consisted of multiple events conducted from both the east and west.

It is imperative to disentangle the origin theories from those suggesting contact. One way to proceed towards a more productive debate is by considering contact, rather than origins, as the principal explanation of the argued cultural and anthropological connections between South America and Rapa Nui (see for example Ioannidis et al. 2020:572–577). Following the research and DNA findings from this paper, there appears to now be evidence suggesting pre-Columbian migration events from Colombia to Rapa Nui. A comparable idea appears to have been first proposed by the Colombian archaeologist Gregorio Hernández de Alba (1904–1973) in 1940. This Colombian scholar noted similarities between the stone figures from San Agustín and certain moai from Rapa Nui and other ancient Oceanic sculptures (Hernández de Alba 1940:57–68). Hernández de Alba’s (1940) conjecture was based on bibliographic research and visual comparisons between the ‘least evolved pieces from San Agustín’ and various supposedly similar figures from Rapa Nui and other Pacific islands housed in the Musée de l’Homme in France (Hernández de Alba 1940:66). The evidence by Ioannidis et al. is arguably more tangible than that by Hernández de Alba. However, in line with Rull’s suggestions, one theory must not exclude the other. Nevertheless, it is still too early to be certain about its conclusions surrounding the migration of Indigenous South Americans from Colombia to Polynesia. The scholarship on this topic, however, continues to be vigorous and to contain elements of controversy, which is why it is fundamental to be aware of the long and complex history of ideas that have influenced the range of Trans-Pacific contact theories we continue to grapple with today.