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The fact that people crossed this in an arctic climate with Stone Age technology is insane. In some ways it sounds harder than trying to be an early settler of the Moon or Mars with today’s technology — at least in that case you would have medicine, climate control, nutritional science, etc.

The Polynesian settlement of the archipelago is pretty hard core too. Long range long duration ocean voyages with canoes and star navigation. They made it to f’ing Hawaii.

Of course I’m sure many people died in all these migrations… which makes it even crazier that people did it. Things like the Trail of Tears were forced but I’m not aware of anyone forcing this.

Makes me think about what wimps most of us (including myself) are today.

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An important piece of context is that food organisms were way more abundant during this time in human history, than they are now. There was almost no need to carry food because the environment was so densely populated by plants and animals that humans could eat. That was true on land and in the ocean, and it made long voyages way less physically difficult than our modern approaches to backpacking or sailing, where the weight, volume, or cost of food creates a limiting distance before resupply.

Shocking to realize that the reason for the relative lack of abundance today is... we did this so much that we ate everything.

> The Polynesian settlement of the archipelago is pretty hard core too. Long range long duration ocean voyages with canoes and star navigation.

They weren't using canoes. You need something that won't capsize. They used catamarans.

Polynesian use of outrigger canoes is well documented. Are you claiming all outriggers are catamarans? Why be pedantic about this?

Because anyone with experience rowing a canoe is going to wonder how you take one across the ocean without drowning. And the answer is, you use a boat that can handle the ocean.

I initially noted that the Polynesians who settled Hawaii didn't have outriggers, and that was wrong - they did have single outriggers. They maintained heavy use of catamarans.

The technological progression goes:

raft -> catamaran ("This raft would be more stable with a canoe at either end") -> single outrigger ("I don't need the passenger space of the raft or the second canoe, but I still need the stability, so the second canoe will just be a log") -> double outrigger ("I like being lightweight with no passenger space, but I wish I could turn in both directions")

I am a Peruvian. These are my ancestors. They came from Siberia and were well used to functioning in cold weather. Today some of our northerners, the Inuit, commonly known as the Eskimo stil live in Alaska and Canada.

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