Genetic Evidence of Contact Between Native Americans and Polynesians

DNA evidence suggests that Native Americans had contact with Polynesians 800 years ago. Indigenous Americans and Polynesians mingled across vast swaths of open ocean around the year 1200, leaving irrefutable evidence of their encounter in the DNA of modern populations, according to new research. The possibility of voyaging contact between prehistoric Polynesian and Native American populations has long intrigued researchers. Proponents have pointed to the presence of New World crops like sweet potato and bottle gourd in the Polynesian archaeological record but nowhere else outside the pre-Columbian Americas. Several genetic studies have reached opposing conclusions, and the possibility continues to be as hotly contested today as it was when first suggested.“ They discovered identical-by-descent Native American ancestry segments on several Polynesian islands. It was conclusive evidence that there was a single shared contact event. In other words, Polynesians and Native Americans intermarried a