John Emerson hypothesizes that the term "kayak" is of Turkic origin and reached Scandinavia from both the east and west ~1700. Under this model the Thule Inuit culture borrowed the term from neighboring Siberian peoples. The reality of circumpolar travel reminds us that though there are broad general trends in intercontinental separation (World Island vs. New World), and though the Inuit served as a very efficient bottleneck in many ways, it is plausible that certain cultural features did "diffuse" from Old World to New. In The Seven Daughters of Eve Bryan Sykes reaffirms the Southeast Asian origin of the Polynesian peoples, but, offers that there is some evidence of South American mtDNA lineages on some of these islands. The presence of Polynesians on Easter Island suggests that it is likely that isolated seafarers did wash up on the South American coast, only to be absorbed into the local population if they managed to stake out a new life.
Posted by razib at 08:23 PM