RAPA NUI, Chile — The causes are worthy, the course is daunting – almost 500 kilometers across a stretch of the Pacific Ocean in a large canoe. It’s the Hoki Mai Challenge, which started Saturday in Rapa Nui, a territory in the Pacific that is part of Chile and is better known as Easter Island. “It won’t be easy,” said …
New genetic research shows that there was mingling between native people from Polynesia and South America, revealing a single episode of interbreeding roughly 800 years ago after an epic transoceanic journey. The study left open the question of who made the monumental Pacific crossing: Polynesians heading east and arriving in Colombia or perhaps Ecuador, or South Americans travelling west. Rapa …
