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The ancestral relationships of people living in the widely scattered islands of the Pacific Ocean, long a puzzle to anthropologists, may have been solved by a new genetic study, researchers reported Thursday.In an analysis of the DNA of 1,000 individuals from 41 Pacific populations, an international team of scientists found strong evidence showing that Polynesians and Micronesians in the central and eastern islands had almost no genetic relationship to Melanesians, in the western islands like Papua New Guinea and the Bismarck and Solomons archipelagos.The researchers also concluded that the genetic data showed that the Polynesians and Micronesians were most closely...

Early Polynesians Sailed Thousands of Miles for Trade Dave Hansford for National Geographic News September 27, 2007 Early Polynesians sailed thousands of miles for exploration and trade, suggests a new study of early stone woodworking tools. The analysis confirms traditional tales of vast ocean voyages and hints that a trading network existed between Hawaii and Tahiti as early as a thousand years ago. The work also bolsters research suggesting that the Polynesians were skillful sailors who rapidly expanded across the Pacific and journeyed as far as South America by the 1400s A.D. Kenneth Collerson and Marshall Weisler of the University...

Chicken bones show Polynesians went to Chile By MAGGIE FOX - Reuters | Tuesday, 5 June 2007 A chicken bone found in Chile provides solid evidence to settle a debate over whether Polynesians travelling on rafts visited South America thousands of years ago – or vice versa, New Zealand researchers have said. The DNA in the bone carries a rare mutation that links it to chickens in Tonga and Samoa, and radiocarbon dating shows it is around 600 years old – meaning it predates the arrival of Spanish conquerors in South America. "These chickens are related to hens from Polynesia,"...

Polynesians beat Columbus to the Americas 22:00 04 June 2007 NewScientist.com news service Emma Young Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Prehistoric Polynesians beat Europeans to the Americas, according to a new analysis of chicken bones. The work provides the first firm evidence that ancient Polynesians voyaged as far as South America, and also strongly suggests that they were responsible for the introduction of chickens to the continent - a question that has been hotly debated for more than 30 years. Chilean archaeologists working at the site of El Arenal-1, on the Arauco Peninsula in south-central Chile, discovered what...

WASHINGTON - A genetic study helps confirm the theory that Polynesians, who settled islands across a vast swath of ocean, started out in Taiwan, researchers reported Monday. Mitochondrial DNA, which is passed along virtually unchanged from mothers to their children, provides a kind of genetic clock linking present-day Polynesians to the descendants of aboriginal residents of Taiwan. Samples taken from nine indigenous Taiwanese tribes — who are different ethnically and genetically from the now-dominant Han Chinese — show clear similarities between the Taiwan groups and ethnic Polynesians, Jean Trejaut and Marie Lin of Mackay Memorial Hospital in Taipei and colleagues...

A genetic study helps confirm the theory that Polynesians, who settled islands across a vast swathe of ocean, started out in Taiwan, researchers reported on Monday. Mitochondrial DNA, which is passed along virtually unchanged from mothers to their children, provides a kind of genetic clock linking present-day Polynesians to the descendants of aboriginal residents of Taiwan. Samples taken from nine indigenous Taiwanese tribes -- who are different ethnically and genetically from the now-dominant Han Chinese -- show clear similarities between the Taiwan groups and ethnic Polynesians, Jean Trejaut and Marie Lin of Mackay Memorial Hospital in Taipei and colleagues reported....

Scientists are taking a new look at an old and controversial idea: that ancient Polynesians sailed to Southern California a millennium before Christopher Columbus landed on the East Coast. Key new evidence comes from two directions. The first involves revised carbon-dating of an ancient ceremonial headdress used by Southern California's Chumash Indians. The second involves research by two California scientists who suggest that a Chumash word for "sewn-plank canoe" is derived from a Polynesian word for the wood used to construct the same boat.