This passage is adapted from an essay discussing archaeological and anthropological debates over ancient maritime migration.
For over a century, anthropologists debated how the vast, scattered islands of Polynesia were settled. The dominant early twentieth-century theory, championed by Thor Heyerdahl, suggested that South American peoples floated westward on balsa-wood rafts, carried passively by prevailing trade winds and currents. This 'drift theory' gained public notoriety but was widely dismissed by linguists and archaeologists who pointed to clear western, Asian roots in Polynesian languages and material culture.
However, the rejection of Heyerdahl’s specific American origin did not settle the debate regarding how the islands were populated. In 1956, Andrew Sharp revived a variation of the passive drift hypothesis. Sharp argued that while Polynesians originated from the west, their settlement of the distant eastern islands was accidental. He claimed that their vessels were incapable of navigating against prevailing head winds or surviving long journeys, and thus, colonization was the result of storm-blown crews lost at sea. According to Sharp, deliberate return voyages over distances greater than three hundred miles were impossible.
This skeptical view provoked a vigorous response from researchers determined to prove that ancient Polynesians were master navigators who settled the Pacific deliberately. The counter-argument developed in two distinct stages: computer simulations and experimental voyaging. First, in the late 1960s, Levison, Ward, and Webb used early computer models to run thousands of simulated drift voyages. The simulations demonstrated that the probability of accidental drift successfully populating eastern Polynesia from the west was statistically negligible. The winds and currents simply would not carry passive vessels to these specific locations.
Second, to prove the physical feasibility of deliberate, non-instrument navigation, the Polynesian Voyaging Society constructed Hōkūleʻa, a double-hulled voyaging canoe built using traditional designs. In 1976, navigator Mau Piailug successfully guided Hōkūleʻa from Hawaii to Tahiti without any modern instruments, relying entirely on the stars, ocean swells, and flight patterns of birds. This voyage did not merely prove that such travel was possible; it demonstrated a systematic methodology of wayfinding that allowed for highly controlled, intentional colonization. Consequently, the consensus shifted permanently: Polynesian settlement was not a series of happy accidents, but the product of sophisticated maritime technology and deliberate exploration.
Which of the following best describes the organizational progression of the passage's argument?
- AIt recounts a chronological narrative of Pacific exploration, starting with South American raft journeys and tracing the development of modern satellite-tracking systems used by the Polynesian Voyaging Society.
- BIt details a theory of accidental colonization, explains how the successful 1976 voyage of the Hōkūleʻa first prompted that theory, and then evaluates it using computer simulations.
- It introduces an early academic debate, presents a revised skeptical hypothesis, and then details two distinct, chronological stages of research that discredited that hypothesis.Answer
- DIt contrasts the vessel construction methods of South American cultures with those of Polynesian voyagers to establish that maritime engineering was the primary driver of Pacific settlement.