they only think coconuts floated over on their own 500 years ago because austronesians are supernaturally invisible to white people
this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2025
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Did austronesians reach the carribean? I thought they made it to madagascar and hawaii, but not the carribean.
Please do not disturb the migratory fruits
35 million years of coconuts in Asia and they didn't float over until after traders established shipping routes to Asia?
According to the first article that popped up in the search results the most likely theory is portugese traders brought them over from madagascar.
The float yeah and that's how they spread, but the coconuts were mostly brought by ships.
A coconut is really good on a ship 500 years ago, you have fresh water, some nutrition, etc.
Some ship gets destroyed with a load of coconuts on board and so it began probably.
Then when even the first ones have taken root, they start floating from isle to isle themselves.
Coconuts have evolved to spread from island to island by floating, but it's still weird that one happened to float to the other side of the world in historic times. I would have guessed that either the currents could never take a coconut there or that the currents would have taken a coconut there long ago.
(When I visit Florida, I see coconuts float by sometimes. Some have been in the water a long time - they're covered in barnacles. However, if they're still floating does that mean they might still be viable?)
Y'know... I'd have found all this "coconuts floated from Asia to the Caribbean" stuff pretty far fetched...
But not two years ago I was fishing, and a goddamn coconut floated right down and bumped me in the leg.
In the Monongahela River.
In Pittsburgh.
So the coconuts migrated, but the majority population of many of the islands were taken there as cargo?
I'm gonna cast doubt on this. It happened too conveniently after people figured out long distance sea travel.
If they would have floated it's much more likely that it happened somewhere in the last million years rather than the last 500.
Do you're telling me that it had nothing to do with swallows being either European or African?!
It could grip it by the husk.
It’s not a matter of where it grips it! It’s a matter of weight ratios!