this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2024
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Archaeology

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Archaeology or archeology[a] is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes.

Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time.

The discipline involves surveying, excavation, and eventually analysis of data collected, to learn more about the past. In broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Read more...

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I gave it a check. It's hard to take a lot of conclusions from a single word, but

  • Quechua - kumar, khumara
  • Rapa Nui - kuma porá
  • Maori - kūmara, kūmera
  • Hawaiian - ʻuala
  • Tongan: kumala

This got to be at least two instances of borrowing, since either Rapa Nui picked another variant of the word to borrow or solved the issue with the ending consonant in a different way (by eliding it instead of adding a new vowel).

The Hawaiian cognate underwent /k/→/ʔ/ (spelled ʻ), so it's probably really old.

Based on that, if I had to take a guess: Polynesians contacted the Amerindians multiple times across the centuries, and it was kind of a big deal for Rapa Nui ones. Sadly a better analysis would need a bigger lexicon than a single word.