Are Native Americans Polynesian? (2023)

Are natives Polynesian?

A genomic study of more than 800 modern Polynesians and Native Americans suggests they did. The work strengthens earlier evidence that somewhere—perhaps on the northern coast of South America—the two groups met and mixed well before the era of European colonialism.

Genetically, Native Americans are most closely related to East Asians and Ancient North Eurasian. Native American genomes contain genetic signals from Western Eurasia due in part to their descent from a common Siberian population during the Upper Paleolithic period.

This raises the puzzling question: are Pacific Islanders indigenous? The NACC has not historically served Pacific Islander students, since Pacific Islanders are not Native Americans. Native Americans are peoples indigenous only to the mainland United States, excluding both Alaska Natives and Hawaiians.

Polynesia includes Hawaii (Native Hawaiian), Samoa (Samoan), American Samoa (Samoan), Tokelau (Tokelauan), Tahiti (Tahitian), and Tonga (Tongan).

The ancestors of the American Indians were nomadic hunters of northeast Asia who migrated over the Bering Strait land bridge into North America probably during the last glacial period (11,500–30,000 years ago). By c. 10,000 bc they had occupied much of North, Central, and South America.

The human settlement of the Pacific Islands represents one of the most recent major migration events of mankind. Polynesians originated in Asia according to linguistic evidence or in Melanesia according to archaeological evidence.

Most Amerindian groups are derived from two ancestral lineages, which formed in Siberia prior to the Last Glacial Maximum, between about 36,000 and 25,000 years ago, East Eurasian and Ancient North Eurasian.

What race are Native Americans classified as?

Indigenous peoples are frequently classified as a racial minority. However, it is important to understand that “Native American” or “American Indian” are not strictly racial categories. Being a member of a tribal nation provides a membership status.

Most researchers think Native American roots lie in Asia, although exactly where is not clear; but a few have suggested Europe, a decidedly minority view because today's Native Americans have clear Asian ancestry. It turns out that both may be right, according to the latest ancient DNA evidence.

Natives of the Hawaiian Islands are not Indigenous People, They're Aboriginal. This blog entry has been revised to ensure historical accuracy. There is much confusion regarding the political term indigenous people and its application or misapplication to the natives of the Hawaiian Islands.

“Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander” includes Native Hawaiian, Samoan, Guamanian or Chamorro, Fijian, Tongan, or Marshallese peoples and encompasses the people within the United States jurisdictions of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia.

The Samoans are a Polynesian people closely related to the native peoples of New Zealand, French Polynesia, Hawaii, and Tonga. The Samoan way of life, or fa'a Samoa, is…

They will often refer to themselves as an “American” when describing their identity. It is important to note that many Native Hawaiians who live in Hawai'i and the U.S., especially if they are U.S. citizens, are considered Americans in their own right.

In the United States, Native American has been widely used but is falling out of favor with some groups, and the terms American Indian or Indigenous American are preferred by many Native people.

But the real population story is about Native Hawaiians, those who are descended from the original people of Hawaii and who today make up 6% of the islands' population, or 21% if you include those who are part-Hawaiian.

Polynesians include the New Zealand Māori (New Zealand), Native Hawaiians (Hawaii), Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Samoans (Samoa and American Samoa), Tahitians (Tahiti), Tokelauans (Tokelau), Niueans (Niue), Cook Islands Māori (Cook Islands) and Tongans (Tonga).

Although Moana is from the fictional island Motunui some 3,000 years ago, the story and culture of Moana is based on the very real heritage and history of Polynesian islands such as Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga, and Tahiti. In fact, once you start looking for ties to Polynesian culture in Moana, it's hard to stop!

Is Polynesian Caucasian?

Physical anthropologists such as Louis R. Sullivan declared Polynesians to be conditionally Caucasian.

And while South American DNA is found in Polynesia, no Polynesian DNA is found in South America.

Previous genetic work had suggested the ancestors of Native Americans split from Siberians and East Asians about 25,000 years ago, perhaps when they entered the now mostly drowned landmass of Beringia, which bridged the Russian Far East and North America.

The earliest populations in the Americas, before roughly 10,000 years ago, are known as Paleo-Indians.

In the 1970s, college students in archaeology such as myself learned that the first human beings to arrive in North America had come over a land bridge from Asia and Siberia approximately 13,000 to 13,500 years ago. These people, the first North Americans, were known collectively as Clovis people.