New evidence has been found for epic prehistoric voyages between the Americas and eastern Polynesia

Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl proved it was possible, now science proves it happened 1200 years ago.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53338203

Until now, proponents of Native American and Polynesian interaction reasoned that some common cultural elements, such as a similar word used for a common crop, hinted that the two populations had mingled before Europeans settled in South America.

Alexander Ioannidis from Stanford University in California and his international colleagues analysed genetic data from more than 800 living indigenous inhabitants of coastal South America and French Polynesia.

"We found identical-by-descent segments of Native American ancestry across several Polynesian islands," said Mr Ioannidis.

"It was conclusive evidence that there was a single shared contact event."

Thor Heyerdahl made a Pacific journey on a balsa raft to show the voyage was possible
In other words, Polynesians and Native Americans met at one point in history, and during that time children with both Native American and Polynesian ancestry were born.

The team were also able to localise the source of the Native American DNA to indigenous groups in modern-day Colombia.

However, the study in Nature journal supports the idea that first contact occurred on one of the archipelagos of eastern Polynesia - as proposed by Heyerdahl.