Ancient Skeletons In Brazil Carried A Genetic Signal Scientists Did Not Expect — And It Complicated The Story Of The First Americans

The Polynesian contact with Native Americans is a different phenomenon from Population Y, and it is important to keep the two distinct.

The Polynesian contact — specifically, contact between Polynesian voyagers and populations on the Pacific coast of South America sometime in the period roughly 700 to 1200 CE — is documented in the genetic record of both Native American and Polynesian populations.

Some Polynesian populations carry a small but detectable amount of Native American ancestry, and some South American Indigenous populations carry a small but detectable amount of Polynesian ancestry.

The timing, the geographic pattern, and the specific nature of the admixture are consistent with contact in the pre-Columbian period, most likely involving Polynesian voyagers reaching the Pacific coast of South America and producing offspring with local populations.