From: Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com>
I heard a recent program on the ability of ancient Polynesians to navigate the Pacific Ocean w/o clocks/longitude or GPS.
Supposedly, the Polynesian navigators use information about waves/swells/etc. to detect the presence & direction of islands over the horizon.
I'm a bit skeptical about this, because unless these skills are relatively easily acquired, anyone with less than a certain critical mass of skills will die, and even partial skills won't be transferred to the next generation. (This is semi-analogous to the spread of a communicable disease, only in this case we _want_ the navigational information/techniques to propagate.)
Polynesians were not unique in having oral traditions that codified their knowledge. They also made maps from sticks, string, and shells. However, some say the biggest clue to the existence of the Hawaiian Islands was probably the pattern of migrating birds. This is as obvious as "Monroe" in the president's problem. Hilarie