A couple of days ago, Jay Bost asked about the origin of coconuts in the Americas:
Anyone ever explore possibility of dispersal of coconut to Americas by Polynesians? Given movement of sweet potato and chickens, any chance they brought coconut?
The answer, it turns out, is out there. I take the liberty here of highlighting what might otherwise remain somewhat buried in a comment on a comment:
Gunn et al. (2011) suggest that the species, “a native of the Old World tropic…was spread to eastern Polynesia and subsequently introduced to the Pacific coasts of Latin America, most likely by pre-Columbian Austronesian seafarers from the Philippines”. Figure 2. is a great schematic showing coconut dispersal routes by humans
