Polynesia is a term describing the racial and ethnic culture that dominates the immense zone of islands in the south pacific–including the Philippines, Hawaii, Samoa and Guam. The ancient Pacific Islanders were masters of ocean travel by fast-moving canoes and outriggers.
Early British explorers such as James Cook learned that the people of Polynesia were masters of ocean navigation. When lost, British sea captains would sometimes kidnap Polynesians to use as guides on the ocean. Polynesians were known to be experts on the stars and ocean currents.
Many scientists have long suspected that ancient Polynesians may have discovered the America’s prior to Columbus in 1492. Now there is DNA research which proves this.
Lars Fehren-Schmitz, an anthropological geneticist at the University of California (UC), Santa Cruz, along with Population geneticist Andrés Moreno-Estrada and anthropologist Karla Sandoval, both at Mexico’s National Laboratory of Genomics for Biodiversity, have shown that the Polynesians on islands such as Easter Island have traces of Native American DNA in their ancestry.
