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