Easter Islanders, living on a remote spot of land in the middle of the Pacific, were not loners at all, and in fact met up with Native Americans earlier than scientists thought, according to new research.
A genetic study, published in the journal Current Biology, reveals that these ancient people had significant contact with Native American populations hundreds of years before the first Westerners reached the island in 1722. What's more, the ancient Polynesian people who populated Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, even interbred with Americans sometime between 1300 and 1500 AD.
The findings are a reminder that "early human populations extensively explored the planet," Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas, from the Natural History Museum of Denmark's Centre for GeoGenetics, said in a press release. "Textbook versions of human colonization events - the peopling of the Americas, for example - need to be re-evaluated utilizing genomic data."
The Polynesians are most famous for their impressive head-and-torso stone statues, of which there are 900 scattered around the island, some weighing as much as 82 tons. Archaeological evidence suggests that these inhabitants first landed on Easter Island around 1200 AD, presumably by way of wooden canoes and with favorable winds guiding them - a great feat considering the journey was nearly 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers). The culture flourished until falling into decline by the 16th century.
With previous hints that these seafarers had contact with the larger world - for example, the presence of crops native to the Americas in Polynesia - researchers conducted a genome-wide analysis of 27 native Rapanui. The results now confirm significant contact between the island people and Native Americans sometime between approximately 1300 and 1500 AD, 19 to 23 generations ago. Easter Islanders began mixing with Europeans only much later, in about 1850.
Furthermore, the ancestry of the Rapanui today is 76 percent Polynesian, eight percent Native American, and 16 percent European.
"We found evidence of gene flow between this population and Native American populations, suggesting an ancient ocean migration route between Polynesia and the Americas," Malaspinas told Reuters.
Based on this new genome data, the researchers suggest that in order for the two populations to intermingle, either Americans sailed to Rapa Nui or Polynesians sailed to the Americas and back, the latter being the more likely. Given that Rapa Nui is a small target, it probably would have been difficult for Native Americans to sail there without getting thrown off course.
In addition, a second study published in the journal Current Biology illustrates another case of Polynesians venturing into South America. Two ancient human skulls from Brazil's indigenous Botocudo people belonged to people who were genetically Polynesian, with no detectable Native American ancestry.