The first inhabitants of Vanuatu and Tonga came from Taiwan, report says

A new study of ancient DNA could upend our understanding of the seafaring people who travelled vast distances to make their home in the Pacific.

Vanuatu and Tonga’s first inhabitants may have come from Asia and not from neighbouring Papuan populations in New Guinea, Australia and the Solomon Islands as previously imagined, according a report published in the journal Nature.

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The team analysed DNA from three skeletons found in a cemetery in Vanuatu and one sample from a Tongan cemetery — all around 3,000 years old. The results indicate the first people of Vanuatu may have come from Taiwan and perhaps the northern Philippines, moving on, a short time later to Tonga. …

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The first inhabitants of Vanuatu and Tonga came from Taiwan, report says