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Modern Polynesian genomes offer clues to early eastward migrations

A genome-wide analysis of modern populations in Polynesia suggests the direction and timing of ancient Polynesian migrations. This model bears consistencies and inconsistencies with models based on archaeology and linguistics.
  1. Patrick V. Kirch

    1. Patrick V. Kirch is in the Department of Anthropology, University of Hawai’i, Manoa Campus, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA.

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Determining the timing and sequence of people’s discovery of and settlement in their island homes in the Pacific Ocean has been an enduring scientific problem. Genetic studies published in the past few years have determined the history of human movements across the southwestern Pacific1, but the settlement of Polynesia remains the subject of ongoing debate. In a methodologically innovative study, Ioannidis et al.2 use genomic data to propose a sequence of migrations, starting in Samoa and progressing rapidly eastwards through the Southern Cook Islands in the ninth century, thence to the Society Islands and Tuamotu Islands, and finally, by the mid-fourteenth century, to the widely separated islands of the Marquesas, Raivavae and Rapa Nui (also known as Easter Island).

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Nature 597, 477-478 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01719-z

References

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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