Taiwan DNA discovery sinks Kon-Tiki theory

Published on Tuesday 5 July 2005 01:08

SCIENTISTS have discovered the mythical homeland of the Polynesians was Taiwan and not, as Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl once famously claimed, South America.

Heyerdahl won international acclaim when he showed that prehistoric sailors could have crossed the Pacific in primitive rafts by making the journey himself on a balsa-wood raft called the Kon-Tiki in 1947.

But while he proved there were trading links between ancient South America and Polynesia, it now appears that the real "Hawaiki" - the Polynesians' original home according to their own myths - is actually Taiwan.

A new DNA study, which was published in the journal PLoS Biology yesterday, found the indigenous population of Taiwan were genetically similar to Polynesians.

The report, by scientists at the Transfusion Medicine Laboratory in Taiwan and Estonia's Biocentre, said: "Analysis of DNA sequences in this study reveals the presence of a motif of three mutations ... [which are] shared among aboriginal Taiwanese, Melanesians and Polynesians. No mainland East Asian population has yet been found to carry lineages derived from these three [DNA] positions.

"This suggests that the motif may have evolved in populations living in or near Taiwan at the end of the late Pleistocene period [more than 10,000 years ago]. The time element ... requires that we adopt a model according to which the origin of Austronesian [including the Polynesian] migration can be traced back to Taiwan."

Heyerdahl first came up with his theory about the origins of Polynesians when he lived on the island of Fatu Hiva in the 1930s and noticed similarities between local plant life and that of South America.

The direction of winds and currents led him to the belief that the Polynesians had travelled from the east and not the north-west. The idea was rubbished by scientists who did not believe prehistoric peoples could have crossed the Pacific.

So, in April 1947, Heyerdahl and five crewmates set out in the Kon-Tiki from Peru on an epic journey that took them 4,300 miles in 101 days to the island of Raroia.

Dr Ingjerd Hoem, head of research at the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, told The Scotsman that her opinion was that Polynesians originated from south-east Asia.

However, she said Heyerdahl, who died in 2002 aged 87, did discover that there had been contact across the Pacific. "They have found evidence of contact in plants like yams and a kind of cotton which were brought from South America," she said.