https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesia#Origins_and_expansio...
> I don't recall any evidence that they sailed all the way to the Americas
We have obvious evidence of contact between Polynesia and South America before the 1200s, as the Maori arrived in NZ in the 13th century with a sweet potato, as I mentioned.
As for "all the way to the Americas", the distance from Rapanui/Easter Island to Chile is less than the distance from the Marquesas Islands to Hawaii (which was colonised in the 10th century), or from Tuabai / Tahiti / Cook Islands (whichever identity of 'Hawaiki' you prefer) to New Zealand.
So, we have evidence that Polynesians contacted the Americas sometime before the 13th century, and we have evidence that the Polynesians were capable of navigating distances greater than that from Easter Island to Chile in the 10th century.
I'm not aware of any evidence of any similar ocean-going prowess of South American natives, as such, Occam's Razor probably applies.
A. Polynesians are definitely not "first South Americans", regardless at which date the conjectured sweet potato journey happened. Simply because the other South Americans we know of arrived about 15,000 years ago, way before Polynesians even left Taiwan.
B. "The distance from Rapanui/Easter Island to Chile is less than the distance from the Marquesas Islands to Hawaii", true. But since Polynesians reached Easter Island only in the 1200s, their conjectured sweet potato journey must have been either post 1200s, or much longer than the journey from Easter Island.
As of the sweet potato, who knows how it got in Maori hands? Super alternative conjecture, maybe some people during the glacial age, beneficiary of low ocean levels, brought it to the islands, and Polynesians picked it up from there?
Who are you correcting? Certainly not me. I'm discussing which side of the Pacific drove the pre-Columbian contact. The obvious answer is the "sea-faring people who colonised islands across the vast distances of the Pacific Ocean".
> "The distance from Rapanui/Easter Island to Chile is less than the distance from the Marquesas Islands to Hawaii", true. But since Polynesians reached Easter Island only in the 1200s, their conjectured sweet potato journey must have been either post 1200s, or much longer than the journey from Easter Island.
They only settled Easter Island in the 1200s. There is ample evidence of Polynesian temporary occupation of otherwise uninhabited islands, such as Raoul Island in the Kermadecs, New Zealand's sub-Antarctic islands (Campbell, Auckland in particular), and Norfolk Island. Polynesian colonisation was largely driven by population pressure, so it's quite likely that they had discovered Easter Island long before they decided to colonise it.
> Super alternative conjecture, maybe some people during the glacial age, beneficiary of low ocean levels, brought it to the islands, and Polynesians picked it up from there?
Occam's Razor definitely applies, especially when you'd have to drop the sea level by several kilometres to have a lower ocean level make any difference to travel to Polynesia from America. Highest mountain on earth is Mauna Loa, in Hawaii, 9km from bottom to top.
Which makes the journey of the Moriori's ancestors from New Zealand to the Chatham Islands in the 1500s even more amazing.
