"We found evidence of gene flow between this population and Native American populations, suggesting an ancient ocean migration route between Polynesia and the Americas," says the study's lead author, geneticist Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas of the Centre for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen.
The genetic evidence indicates either that Rapa Nui people travelled the 3700 kilometres to South America or that Native Americans journeyed to Easter Island. The researchers believe it probably was the Rapa Nui people making the arduous ocean round trips.
"It seems most likely that they voyaged from Rapa Nui to South America and brought South Americans back to Rapa Nui and admixed with them," says Mark Stoneking, a geneticist with Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, who collaborated on a related study of Brazil's indigenous Botocudo people.
the suprise in this is not that the Easter Island folks traveled to South America, but that their DNA matched that of Amazon tribal folks.
But then, the Amazon was highly populated back then, and in contact with the mountain empires.
Video lecture here.
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photo of the day:
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| This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, taken in infrared light, shows where the action is taking place in galaxy NGC 1291 (NASA/JPL/Spitzer) |
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Angels according to the dead sea scrolls.
One of a series bookmarked for later reading.
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Podcasts of the week:
OU continues it's series on the law.
from the Free Library site:
 | Walter Isaacson | The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution Recorded 10/20/2014 Listen to MP3 audio |
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