[Explainer] The Pacific Was Not a Straight Line: How Palau Genomes Rewrite the “Out of Taiwan” Story

Around 3,000 years ago, humans arrived nearly simultaneously across the Southwest Pacific, the Mariana Islands and Palau — one of the most dramatic chapters of the Austronesian expansion. But the simplified map of a straight eastward push “Out of Taiwan” is now being redrawn by ancient DNA.

The old model had Austronesian speakers leaving Taiwan as “purely East Asian” groups, island-hopping east, and only mixing with Papuan-related peoples after reaching Vanuatu and Fiji. The Palau genomes tell a different story: Palau’s first settlers were already an East Asian–Papuan mix, roughly 60:40, when they arrived.

Two different scripts thus play out across one ocean: Vanuatu and Fiji show “arrive first, mix later,” whereas Palau shows “mix first, arrive later.” Writing in Science‘s news section, journalists argue this forces a revision of the linear “Out of Taiwan then island-by-island admixture” narrative.

The Pacific was never colonized in a straight line: admixture may have begun before departure, and each island chain has its own rhythm. That is the crucial stroke ancient DNA has added to the prehistory of the open ocean.

Source: Science news section (based on Liu et al. 2026 Cell). Ancient DNA reshapes the story of early Pacific migrations, 2026-04.