LAUSR

Micronesia began to be peopled earlier than other parts of Remote Oceania, but the origins of its inhabitants remain unclear. We generated genome-wide data from 164 ancient and 112 modern individuals. Analysis reveals five migratory streams into Micronesia. Three are East Asian related, one is Polynesian, and a fifth is a Papuan source related to mainland New Guineans that is different from the New Britain–related Papuan source for southwest Pacific populations but is similarly derived from male migrants ~2500 to 2000 years ago. People of the Mariana Archipelago may derive all of their precolonial ancestry from East Asian sources, making them the only Remote Oceanians without Papuan ancestry. Female-inherited mitochondrial DNA was highly differentiated across early Remote Oceanian communities but homogeneous within, implying matrilocal practices whereby women almost never raised their children in communities different from the ones in which they grew up. Description Human migrations into Micronesia The movements of ancient humans can be difficult to ascertain from their current population genetic structure. Studying the peopling of the Micronesian islands, Liu et al. examined 164 ancient human remains from five different archaeological sites in remote Oceania from different prehistoric time frames, along with 112 present-day individuals from the same area. They combined these new data with the results of previous studies and also compared their results with linguistic studies. Their analysis revealed successive movements from island Southeast Asia that differ from those in the southwest Pacific. Furthermore, co-analysis of Micronesian and southwest Pacific ancient DNA indicates that the first people who colonized the Pacific islands had a population structure in which men moved to find their mates, whereas women rarely moved to join men. —LMZ Analyses of ancient and modern Micronesians show different peopling compared with the southwest Pacific