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The speculation about the origins of Pacific Islanders is seemingly endless-the link as given is all about efforts to clarify those obscure and yet strangely appealing migrations.

Edited by:someone who loves the sea.

There's been some cool studies in recent years using proxies for human migration to study the origins and settlement patterns of the Pacific Islanders, including genetic studies of rats, breadfruit, and the ti plant, all of which were human introduced throughout the Pacific. All of these point to an Asian origin of Pacific Islanders, but as far as I understand it, there isn't a consensus on how many groups settled the Pacific, how many waves of migration there were through time, and the exact order the island groups were settled.

There also seems to be increasing evidence for at least occasional trade between the early Polynesians and the Americas, evidenced by the sweet potato and bottle gourd in Polynesia before the European influence, which I find really amazing - that's a long way to go for a sweet potato!

"There also seems to be increasing evidence for at least occasional trade between the early Polynesians and the Americas, evidenced by the sweet potato and bottle gourd in Polynesia before the European influence, which I find really amazing - that's a long way to go for a sweet potato! "

I always get a laugh when I read someone's theory about how those 2 veggies must have drifted across the Pacific-no one who's spent even an afternoon on a windy day on the open Pacific knows they had to be carried by people.