"It is the year 1526. The four ships of the Loaisa expedition have just entered the Pacific from the Strait of Magellan on their way to the East Indies for a cargo of spices. A storm blows up. The ships are separated. One, the caravel San Lesmes with 50 or so men on board is never seen again ... The new book traces the crew of the San Lesmes and their descendants to various atolls of the Tuamotu Archipelago, to the Society and Austral Islands -- even to distant Easter Island and New Zealand. It argues that the last prehistoric settlement of New Zealand was made when some of the San lesmes crew came upon the North Island in trying to return to Spain from the vicinity of Tahiti by sailing along the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope. It claims that many Maori of today are descended from them. The book tells also how a number of present-day Easter islanders with no known non-Easter Island ancestors have been found to be carriers of certain genes that are peculiar to Europeans and especially common among Basques. In a nutshell, The Lost Caravel Re-explored throws unexpected new light on the prehistory of several widely separated Polynesian islands and challenges many long held views on that subject ..." -- Back cover.