A new genetic study suggests that Polynesians made an epic voyage to South America 800 years ago?

About 3,000 years ago, people on the eastern edge of Asia began sailing east, crossing thousands of miles of ocean to reach uninhabited islands.

Today, people on Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, and four other Polynesian islands carry small amounts of DNA inherited from people who lived in Colombia about 800 years ago.

One explanation: Polynesians came to South America, and then took South Americans onto their boats to voyage back out to sea.

A genetic study suggests that South Americans from present-day Colombia somehow reached the Marquesas Islands in the 12th century.

Traces of their DNA were eventually passed down to people living on Rapa Nui and nearby Polynesian islands.

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Previous genetic studies had also hinted that people on Rapa Nui had some ancient South American ancestry

But the new study offers a more compelling case because the researchers looked at more than 800 people using a number of sophisticated new statistical tools

The new study emerged from a decade-long project to create a map of the genetic diversity in modern Latin Americans

After Asians crossed the Bering Land Bridge 16,000 years ago, they spread across the Americas, reaching the southern tip of South America by 14,000 years ago

Sandoval started collaborating with Chilean scientists to study Rapa Nui

In an earlier study on Rapa Nui, led by Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas of the University of Lausanne, researchers analyzed DNA from 27 islanders

They found evidence that the participants had a mixture of Polynesian and Native American ancestry

Some of their Native American DNA appeared to have been inherited from recent immigrants from Chile

But other pieces were different, suggesting they originated from Native Americans many generations earlier

Sandoval and their colleagues compared the DNA of 809 people from Rapa Nui and other Polynesian islands, as well as in countries along the Pacific coast from Mexico to Chile

The researchers found that most of the people on Rapa Nui had some recent Chilean forebears

From them, they inherited both Native American and European DNA

Their Native American ancestry had a different source: the Zenu population of Colombia

The scientists then found some of the same pieces of DNA in people on four other islands in eastern Polynesia

The researchers were then able to estimate how long ago these Native American ancestors lived by measuring the size of the DNA fragments

Matisoo-Smith said the study would have been stronger had the researchers compared the Polynesians with other populations, such as people in mainland China

That would help rule out the possibility that what looks like Native American ancestry in Polynesia is actually just DNA inherited from the common ancestors of the two groups in Asia

If the research holds up to further scrutiny, many experts said the best explanation would be that Polynesians came to South America and then took South Americans onto their boats to voyage back out to sea

Malaspinas said that since Polynesians had already traveled so far across the Pacific, there was no reason to think they couldn’t go to South America

One important staple across Polynesia is the sweet potato, which originated in South America

But the authors of the new paper emphasize another possibility: South Americans traveled on their own to a Polynesian island, where Polynesians sailing from the east encountered them

Estrada and his colleagues draw parallels between this scenario and the claims of Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian explorer who sailed on a raft in 1947 from South America to Polynesia

Heyerdahl championed the idea that Polynesia was settled by South Americans

If South Americans wound up on the Marquesas Islands, they would have brought some things with them that archaeologists could have later uncovered

A child of Polynesian and South American parents would have a clear genetic signature

Ancient DNA from South America might help, too

Fehren-Schmitz said, that other places in South America would be better to look for lost Polynesians

It’s conceivable, for example, that some Polynesians who reached South America may have opted to live on the islands just off the coast