Rapa Nui is a 1994 film directed by Kevin Reynolds. It was produced by Kevin Costner and Barrie M. Osborne, among others. The plot is based on Rapanui legends of Easter Island, Chile, in particular the race for the Sooty Tern's egg in the Birdman Cult.
Kon-Tiki explorer was partly right – Polynesians had South American roots.
According to a news article on the website Telegraph, 17 June 2011, it is probably the most epic journey ever undertaken just to prove a point. The Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl clung to Kon-Tiki, his balsa wood raft, for 4,300 miles to show that Polynesia could have been colonised from South America rather than Asia as commonly thought.
Professor Erik Thorsby of the University of Oslo in Norway has found clear evidence to support elements of Heyerdahl's hypothesis.
In 1971 and 2008 he collected blood samples from Easter Islanders whose ancestors had not interbred with Europeans and other visitors to the island. Thorsby has analysed the genes, which vary greatly from person to person.
Most of the islanders' genes were Polynesian, but a few of them also carried genes only previously found in indigenous American populations.
Thorsby found that in some cases the Polynesian and American genes were mixed together, the result of a process known "recombination".
This means the American genes would need to be around for a certain amount of time for it to happen.
Perhaps the Easter Island has been colonised by both people from South America and Asia?
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