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Link to original content: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04488-4
Sweet potato migrated to Polynesia thousands of years before people did
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Sweet potato migrated to Polynesia thousands of years before people did

Vegetable's travels deepen mystery about timing of first contact between people in Americas and the South Pacific.
  1. Alex Fox
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The unassuming sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) has been at the centre of a decades-long debate about when ancient peoples in the Americas and Polynesia first made contact. Now, a study1 finds that the vegetable, which is native to South America, beat people to the South Pacific islands by at least 100,000 years.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-04488-4

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 20 April 2018: This story originally referred to the sweet potato as a tuber, which is incorrect. The text has been updated to address this.

References

  1. Muñoz-Rodríguez, P. et al. Curr. Biol. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.03.020 (2018).

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  2. Miryeganeh, M. et al. PLoS ONE 9, e91836 (2014).

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  3. Viana, D. S., Gangoso, L., Bouten, W. & Figuerola, J. Proc. R. Soc. B 283, 20152406 (2016).

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