Early Polynesians didn’t go to Americas, chicken DNA hints
Poultry genetics undermines claims of ancient cross-sea trips to South America
Ancient Polynesians probably didn’t reach the shores of South America, an analysis of ancient chicken DNA from islands dotting the Pacific suggests.
Between about 3,400 and 700 years ago, Polynesians settled the islands of the Pacific, carrying plants and food animals with them. Researchers have used DNA from pigs, chickens and rats to help trace the people’s island-hopping path.
One study of chicken DNA had suggested that Polynesians reached South America sometime before Columbus. Now Vicki Thomson of the University of Adelaide in Australia and colleagues question that report. Contamination of ancient DNA samples with modern chicken DNA misled the researchers, Thomson’s group reports March 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.