History[edit]

Easter Island was first inhabited by a Polynesian culture known as the Rapa Nui, and the Rapa Nui knew about Salas y Gómez Island during prehistoric times. As such, academics often group them in with Oceania rather than South America.^[1] Descendants of the ancient Rapa Nui make up the majority of Easter Island's current population, and they still consider themselves Polynesians, not associating their island with the culture of South America.^[2]


The Juan Fernández Islands and Desventuradas Islands are geographically closer to South America, and there is no evidence to suggest a link to Polynesians. However, they were also never inhabited by any Indigenous American group, unlike with the Caribbean Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. The Juan Fernández Islands and Desventuradas Islands have been included in wider definitions of Oceania, that extend it beyond the ethnocultural regions of Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia.^[1] This is not only because of their status as remote Pacific islands with no geologicial connections to the Americas, but also because of their marine fauna, which shares many similarities to the rest of Oceania.^[3][4]