Geneticists discover shared origins of Indigenous peoples of Hawaii and Rapa Nui — Live Science

Indigenous peoples of Hawaii and the island of Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, have the closest genetic relationship with each other among the studied Polynesian populations. As Live Science reports, scientists link their ancestors to a shared culture of experienced seafarers from the Mangareva Islands area.

Genome analysis

Researchers analyzed the genomes of 1,050 modern people from Polynesia, including 317 Indigenous Hawaiians and 12 residents of Rapa Nui. They compared the lengths of shared chromosome segments in people from different islands: the longer such segments are, the more recently the people shared a common ancestor.

Hawaii and Rapa Nui are located about 7,200 kilometers apart and are the most distant islands from one another in Polynesia. Despite this distance, the analysis showed that the Indigenous peoples of these two islands are genetically closer to each other than to other studied groups.

Seafarers from Mangareva

According to the authors’ conclusion, both islands were likely settled by representatives of a single culture of long-distance seafarers associated with Mangareva. The Mangareva Islands area is located about 5,530 kilometers southeast of Hawaii and 2,600 kilometers west of Rapa Nui.

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Scientists suggest that the ancestors of Indigenous Hawaiians and Rapa Nui residents existed as a single group for some time after separating from the ancient population of Mangareva. Later, part of this group set out for Hawaii, while another part went to Rapa Nui. The study results were published on October 8 in the journal Science.

Founder effect

The authors also studied the genetic consequences of settling islands by small groups of people, the so-called founder effect. They found that among Indigenous Polynesian populations, this effect could have intensified over several generations, as small groups from already settled islands set out to develop new territories.

The study also identified three genetic variants rare in the global population in 2–3% of the studied Eastern Polynesians, which are associated with lens dislocation, progressive vision loss, and kidney failure.