Ancient DNA offers clues to remote Pacific islands’ population puzzle
Two ancient-DNA studies are unravelling the complex sequence of human migrations that left remote islands in the Pacific with a rare linguistic and genetic disconnect. Vanuatu — an 80-island archipelago strewn across 1,300 kilometres of the southern Pacific Ocean — was one of the final pockets of the planet to be reached by humans, with its first inhabitants arriving only 3,000 years ago. For more than a century, researchers have puzzled over why its inhabitants speak languages rooted in southeast Asia, but trace most of their genetic ancestry to what is now Papua New Guinea, which has its own distinct languages.
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