Austronesians in South America

nPolynesian contact with South America has long been the subject of speculation (Heyerdahl etc.) but model was confused, having Amerindians voyaging in the Pacific, despite their known  lack of ocean-going craft nProbably the crack in scholarly scepticism was the clear evidence that the sweet potato reached Eastern Polynesian, under its Peruvian name, kumara, in pre-Spanish time. nSince then, a considerable amount of other evidence has turned up, notably in human genetics where the presence of the 9 base pair deletion on  the West Coast of South America points to Polynesian presence