Abstract
This chapter explores the possibility that Spice Island mariners may have been responsible for trading American plants to India over millennia. That such trade existed is clear from the research of John Sorenson and Carl Johannessen. Using a combination of botanical and archaeological evidence, they establish that over a span of 2,600 years from 1600 BC to AD 1000 at least 40 American plants were introduced to India. We argue that Spice Islanders had the motive, means and opportunity to handle such trade: the needed maritime and horticultural skills, a long history of transoceanic exploration, trading and migration, a long history of plant domestication in Wallacea and mastery of transoceanic voyaging in two oceans. The implication of conceivable Spice Island involvement is a frequency of transpacific voyages far in excess of that implied by the archaeological evidence from California for Spice Island contact with America.
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Pearce, C.E., Pearce, F. (2010). Transoceanic Trading in Two Oceans. In: Oceanic Migration. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3826-5_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3826-5_8
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