Biological anthropologist Lisa Matisoo-Smith, from the University of Otago has spent many years tracing the DNA from plants and animals that Pacific settlers carried in their canoes, and using that as a proxy for identifying human population origins and tracking their movement around the Pacific. Her latest research sheds light on guinea pig domestication and how the small, furry animals had different roles through time and in different parts of the world. Meanwhile, a just published study showing some Polynesians carry DNA of ancient South Americans from present-day Colombia, is re-fueling debate about whether Polynesian canoes made it all the way to the Americas. Lisa Matisoo-Smith, was not involved in the new study but has warned that the history of Polynesia is so complex that the new results might not reflect it accurately.