Native Hawaiians are genetically closest to the people of Easter Island, and new research says the first humans to settle the Hawaiian islands sailed there from Rapa Nui. The study, published in the journal Science and reported by Reuters, settles one of the Pacific’s oldest questions about how Hawaii was first reached.
The researchers compared whole genomes from people on different islands and reconstructed thousands of family trees. In 61% of those trees, Hawaii and Rapa Nui paired together. The data points to a founding population making a voyage of more than 4,400 miles (7,100 km) in double-hulled sailing canoes.
Stanford computational geneticist Alexander Ioannidis, a co-senior author of the study, said the findings show people reached Easter Island in the 1200s after a journey from Mangareva in French Polynesia, more than 1,500 miles away, and that a subset then set off for Hawaii, most likely in the same century. UC San Diego genome scientist Keolu Fox, the other co-senior author, said the team checked the result four ways because, in his words, they “couldn’t believe it ourselves at first.”
Source: Reuters
