The unique mixture of Austronesian and Papuan ancestry in Samoans is possibly related to the initial settlement of the islands and suggests that groups with somewhat different ancestry settled Samoa, compared to nearby Tonga, Dr Cochrane says.
Samoans are mainly of Polynesian heritage, and about nine-tenths of the population are ethnic Samoans. Euronesians (people of mixed European and Polynesian ancestry) account for most of the rest of the population, and a tiny fraction are of wholly European heritage.
Pacific Islanders refer to those whose origins are the original peoples of Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. Polynesia includes Hawaii (Native Hawaiian), Samoa (Samoan), American Samoa (Samoan), Tokelau (Tokelauan), Tahiti (Tahitian), and Tonga (Tongan).
1. The majority of the African ancestry is from West African sources, and the European ancestry is primarily from West European sources (Fig. 1B), which is consistent with the European colonial history of Samoa (22–24).
American Samoa
(more than nine-tenths) is ethnically Samoan; there are tiny minorities of Tongan and Filipino origin and of people of mixed ethnicity. The Samoans are a Polynesian people closely related to the native peoples of New Zealand, French Polynesia, Hawaii, and Tonga.
Polynesians today do carry a significant amount of Melanesian DNA. But that DNA is in relatively long, unbroken chunks, the analyses found, suggesting that it was incorporated into Polynesians' genomes recently, perhaps about 500 to 2500 years ago, after the Lapita period.
Ancient myths and legends say the first people descended from the heavens and gods to inhabit these islands, however, It is believed they came from Tonga.
Genetic testing of Tagata Samoa indicates their ancestors came from Southeast Asia and Melanesia about 2,800 years ago. The first European to sight Sāmoa was a Dutchman named Jacob Roggeveen. He visited in 1722. In 1768, the French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville named Samoa, the Navigator Islands.
Samoans are Polynesian and there are few other distinct ethnic groups, though some elite Samoans have part Chinese or European (especially German) ancestry.
“This high prevalence of obesity among Samoans is a relatively recent phenomenon,” Arslanian notes. It appears to be “heavily influenced by globalization” and “the shift from subsistence agriculture to excess consumption of high calorie, processed foods and sedentary lifestyles.”
Around the world, about 25% of all Samoans claim Chinese ancestry. Nearly all Chinese nationals in Samoa reside within the Apia municipal area; neighbouring American Samoa, also has a small population of Chinese expatriates.
Samoan is from the Austronesian family of languages. It is closely related to other Polynesian languages, especially Tongan.
Papālagi~Pālagi is a word in the Samoan language describing non-Samoans, usually white foreigners of European or American descent. In Samoa the term is used to describe foreigners. The word is both a noun e.g. a Palagi (European person) or an adjective e.g. Palagi house (non-traditional Samoan house).
Samoan is closely related to Maori, Tahitian, Hawaiian and Tongan languages. While it is not necessarily mutually intelligible with the other dialects, many words are identical or similar. Samoan also has a polite variant used in formal communication and a colloquial form used in daily communication.
In Samoa, gender identity is largely based on a person's role in the family and if one family has numerous sons and no daughters, it's not uncommon to raise one of the boys as a girl.
Answer and Explanation: Indigenous Australians are most closely related to the peoples of Melanesia, such as Papuans, with only remote ancestry in common with Polynesians.
The migrants came to Australia for commerce, education and missionary purposes. The 1921 Census recorded 110 Samoa-born people in Australia. During the 1970s the number of Samoans coming to Australia increased as a result of educational programs sponsored by Australia.
No. In fact, going by the tripartite typing of Pacific identity along with Micronesians and Polynesians, Australian Aboriginals/First Nations are actually Melanesians. The distinction was coined in the 1830s by the French explorer and polymath Jules Dumont D'Urville, who divided the Pacific into three regions.
Samoans or Samoan people (Samoan: tagata Sāmoa) are the indigenous Polynesian people of the Samoan Islands, an archipelago in Polynesia, who speak the Samoan language.
So, while the Polynesian mtDNA haplotypes belonging to the B4a1a1 lineages can ultimately be traced back to Southeast Asia, Polynesian origins lie in both Asia and Near Oceania.
Basic math tells us that all humans share ancestors. But you'll be amazed at how recently those shared ancestors lived. Thanks to genetic data in the 21st century, we're even discovering that we really are all descended from one mother.
He was later driven out by the progenitors of the Malietoa dynasty. Despite this successful rebellion intermarriages between Tongan and Samoan chiefly lines continued, and Ngata, the progenitor of the current Tonga royal dynasty, the Tuʻi Kanokupolu, was of Samoan descent.
But when Talaifei'i became King of the Tongan empire, the situation changed abruptly because he was a cruel man. To protect himself and make his dominion over the Samoans more complete, Talaifei'i enslaved the Samoan people and forced them to build forts and roads all around Samoa.
The western islands became known as Western Samoa (now just Samoa), passing from German control to New Zealand in 1914. New Zealand administered Western Samoa under the auspices of the League of Nations and then as a UN trusteeship until independence in 1962.