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For centuries, Polynesian navigators crossed thousands of miles of open ocean, using their knowledge of stars, currents, birds, clouds and the sea to settle islands across the Pacific. Now, a new University of California San Diego study shows the history of voyaging is also reflected in the genomes of Polynesian populations today.

Published in Science, the study analyzes whole-genome sequences from 1,050 individuals across Polynesia. The findings offer genomic evidence of the extraordinary skill, knowledge and achievement of Polynesian voyagers, whose mastery of long-distance ocean travel helped shape the genetic history of the Pacific.

Using DNA to trace how Polynesian communities were formed, the study also shows that the same migration history may help explain why certain health-related genetic variants are more common in some island populations.

As Polynesian voyagers left established island communities to settle in new ones, each group carried only a portion of the genetic diversity found in the population it left behind. For example, a group departing Mangareva for Hawaiʻi or Rapa Nui would have carried only a subset of the genetic variation found among the people living in Mangareva. When later groups set out from newly settled islands, they carried an even smaller subset of that genetic variation with them.

The authors compare the pattern to a set of Russian nesting dolls: The largest population contains the most genetic variation, while each successive population contains a smaller genetic subset within it.

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