Polynesian and South American people met, interbred many centuries ago

People 6,800 kilometres away by sea share DNA, showing interbreeding 800 years ago

New genetic research shows that there was mingling between ancient Indigenous peoples from Polynesia and South America, revealing a single episode of interbreeding roughly 800 years ago after an epic transoceanic journey.

The question of such contact — which was long hypothesized, in part based on the enduring presence in Polynesia of a staple food in the form of the sweet potato that originated in South and Central America — had been keenly debated among scientists.

Scientists said on Wednesday an examination of DNA from 807 people — from 14 Polynesian islands and Pacific coastal Indigenous populations from Mexico to Chile — definitively resolved the matter.

Thomson Reuters · Posted: Jul 09, 2020 7:41 AM ET | Last Updated: 4 hours ago

laklak wrote:Spreadin' that seed, the old genetic imperative. Dudes went a long way for some strange.

Spearthrower wrote:There's a whole load of studies being published right now about sea-faring interactions of the past. The palaeolithic colonization of the Caribbean and the Ryukyu islands, and an ancient sea-faring people on the Mariana Islands - the proto-Polynesians.

Challenger007 wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:There's a whole load of studies being published right now about sea-faring interactions of the past. The palaeolithic colonization of the Caribbean and the Ryukyu islands, and an ancient sea-faring people on the Mariana Islands - the proto-Polynesians.

Well, we are used to the idea that all the discoveries were made by European countries. But after all, not only in Europe lived people who came up with the idea to build such a ship that can cover a long distance. And some shipping laws could be discovered not only by the Dutch or the British, for example.