In new research, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Australian National University and the University of Guam analyzed ancient DNA from two humans who lived on Guam 2,200 years ago and found that their ancestry is linked to the Philippines. Moreover, they are closely related to ancient humans from Vanuatu and Tonga, suggesting that the early Mariana Islanders may have been involved in the colonization of Polynesia.
Tahitian warrior dugouts from ‘
Le Costume Ancien et Moderne’ by Giulio Ferrario, Milan, between 1816 and 1827.
Humans reached the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific by 3,500 years ago, contemporaneous with or even earlier than the initial peopling of Polynesia.