Human Migration of the Pacific

via ScienceDaily.

New genetic studies of domestic and feral pigs show that the theory regarding the colonization of the Pacific by early humans may have been a bit too simplistic. The theory held that humans and all their domesticated animals they brought with them all originated in or near Taiwan when they sailed to the other Pacific islands. It appears from these new findings that their animals not only had origins further to the southwest, but that the people may have travelled different routes than expected. Archaeological and linguistic evidence of humans has always appeared to support the Taiwan theory.

"Scientists from Durham University and the University of Oxford, studying DNA and tooth shape in modern and ancient pigs, have revealed that, in direct contradiction to longstanding ideas, ancient human colonists may have originated in Vietnam and travelled between numerous islands before first reaching New Guinea, and later landing on Hawaii and French Polynesia."

The genetic differences between the various pig gives us a great way to measure these migrations since the pigs obviously didn't swim all the various islands in the Pacific, but had to be taken there by their human keepers.