Genomics reveals ancient migrations across the Pacific

DNA evidence is helping reconstruct ancient migrations across the Pacific, including voyages that carried small groups of people across vast distances, ERR reports. Kai Tätte, a researcher at the University of Tartu, analysed the genes of hundreds of Indigenous people from Asia and the Pacific and compared the results with earlier studies.

Tätte found that people in Polynesia share unexpectedly long stretches of DNA with Indigenous peoples of Taiwan, thousands of kilometres away. The similarities suggest that ancient seafarers travelled great distances in a short time and settled new islands in small groups.

This pattern is known as the founder effect: when only a few people settle an island, much of the genetic diversity of the original population is lost, and later generations inherit genes from those first settlers.

Tätte also studied the Munda peoples of South Asia. The genetic data indicate that their ancestors migrated from Southeast Asia to India 3,000 to 4,000 years ago and mixed with local people. The migration differed by sex: Southeast Asian men were the main source of new genes in the region and had children with local women.

Changes in language and culture do not necessarily mean populations have mixed genetically. The people of Kiritimati, an island, adopted English and Christianity, but researchers found no European genetic trace in their genomes.

Tätte presented the findings in a doctoral thesis recently defended at the University of Tartu.