Austronesians in California

nRecent evidence (published in American Antiquity, 2003) suggests that there was contact between the Chumash Indians and Polynesians in Southern California between 400 and 800 A.D. nThis is based on the unique design of their boats, sewn plank canoes, rather than dugouts used elsewhere along the coast and perhaps more strikingly, typically Polynesian compound fish-hooks nChumash is essentially dead as a language but work continues