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In other words, Polynesians and Native Americans met at one point in history, and during that time children with both Native American and Polynesian ancestry were born.
Statistical analyses confirmed the event occurred around AD 1200, at about the time Pacific islands were originally being settled by Polynesians.
The team were also able to localise the source of the Native American DNA to indigenous groups in modern-day Colombia.
Previous studies of the genomes (the full complement of DNA in the nuclei of human cells) of people from these regions have focused around contact on Easter Island - famous for its giant stone faces - because it is the closest inhabited Polynesian island to South America.
However, the study in Nature journal supports the idea that first contact occurred on one of the archipelagos of eastern Polynesia - as proposed by Heyerdahl.
(...)
In other words, Polynesians and Native Americans met at one point in history, and during that time children with both Native American and Polynesian ancestry were born.
Statistical analyses confirmed the event occurred around AD 1200, at about the time Pacific islands were originally being settled by Polynesians.
The team were also able to localise the source of the Native American DNA to indigenous groups in modern-day Colombia.
Previous studies of the genomes (the full complement of DNA in the nuclei of human cells) of people from these regions have focused around contact on Easter Island - famous for its giant stone faces - because it is the closest inhabited Polynesian island to South America.
However, the study in Nature journal supports the idea that first contact occurred on one of the archipelagos of eastern Polynesia - as proposed by Heyerdahl.
(...)
