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[Explainer] The Austronesian Voyagers: How a mtDNA “Polynesian Motif” Linked Half the Globe
2026年3月4日Ancient Palau Genomes Rewrite Remote Oceania Settlement: East Asian–Papuan Admixture Predated Arrival
A team led by David Reich of Harvard Medical School, in collaboration with the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has sequenced 21 ancient human genomes from the Pacific archipelago of Palau. The findings were published in Cell on 1 March 2026; the earliest individuals date to roughly 2900–2500 calBP.
The first Palauan settlers already carried about 60% East Asian (Austronesian-related) ancestry and around 40% New Guinean (Papuan-related) ancestry — proportions strikingly similar to those of present-day Palauans. The result implies that large-scale Papuan–East Asian admixture took place before people first reached Palau, rather than after.
The archipelago also maintained an unusually long period of genetic continuity — nearly 2,800 years — something rarely documented across Remote Oceania. The authors argue that key admixture events in the Austronesian expansion into the open Pacific occurred earlier, and in a more complex sequence, than previously assumed.
Source: Liu Y.-C., Eakin J. E. et al. Cell (IVPP press release), 2026-03-01.
