According to wikipedia this is the less likely and imo less interesting explanation. They did find coconuts that are genetically distinct from the ones the Spanish brought over from the Philippines, but those ones are more distantly related to the ones in polynesia so they probably didn’t float over. Instead they are more likely evidence of pre-columbian contact of Polynesians with south and central America, along with sweet potatoes originating in South America but being present in polynesia and SEA prior to columbus.
So this would boot Columbus off the podium in people who discovered America.
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Bering strait people / native American ancestors
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Polynesian people
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Vikings, Leif Erickson
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Columbus
1 and 2 I think have pretty good consensus. The Bering land bridge opened about 10,000 years ago while the Polynesians didn’t reach Hawaii until 900 ad, so if they got to South America it was probably after that. There is some speculation that some separate group of people crossed over even before them since evidence shows that the south American coast became populated very quickly after the Bering bridge opened. Like they got to South America before they got to the interior of north America. That could be because the Rockies are large and without the fish that those people were probably eating, or it could be that some very early people, millennium before the Polynesians domesticated coconuts, made the crossing. That theory of very far in the realm of speculation but it’s a fun theory.