Posted on 01/18/2008 6:57:04 AM PST by Dysart
The ancestral relationships of people living in the widely scattered islands of the Pacific Ocean, long a puzzle to anthropologists, may have been solved by a new genetic study, researchers reported Thursday.
In an analysis of the DNA of 1,000 individuals from 41 Pacific populations, an international team of scientists found strong evidence showing that Polynesians and Micronesians in the central and eastern islands had almost no genetic relationship to Melanesians, in the western islands like Papua New Guinea and the Bismarck and Solomons archipelagos.
The researchers also concluded that the genetic data showed that the Polynesians and Micronesians were most closely related to Taiwan Aborigines and East Asians. They said this supported the view that these migrating seafarers originated in Taiwan and coastal China at least 3,500 years ago.
The findings were described in the online journal Public Library of Science Genetics (www.plosgenetics.org) by researchers led by Jonathan S. Friedlaender, professor emeritus of biological anthropology at Temple University. He was assisted in the data analysis by his wife, Françoise R. Friedlaender, an independent researcher. Other participants included scientists in the islands and at the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation in Marshfield, Wis.
“Our analysis,” the scientists wrote, “indicates the ancestors of Polynesians moved through Melanesia relatively rapidly and only intermixed to a very modest degree with the indigenous populations there.”
Dr. Friedlaender of Temple said in an interview that the evidence was “substantial” and “solves a number of issues about the migration and settlement of Pacific people.”
In particular, he and other anthropologists not involved in the study said, the genetic research supported the “fast train” hypothesis.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Well, this should help to answer that question...
http://www.biology.iastate.edu/intop/1Australia/04papers/TressaAborigOrign.htm
“...Conclusions
Though genetic, archeological, and anthropological studies on the colonization date of Australia are contradictory at times, some general conclusions may be reached when the evidence is considered collectively.
Based on mtDNA analysis, Ingman and Gyllesten proposed a colonization date of 71,000±12,000 years ago and suggested multiple migrations to Australia or a heterogeneous source population...
(I’m a lot wiser now...)
When proof was found in 1978 that some of the Easter Island statues once had inlaid eyes, it came as a shock to many researchers, who had opposed the idea on the grounds that this was not a Polynesian custom. Inlaid eyes were a common feature of many of the oldest images of the Middle East, from Egypt to the Indus Valley. The seafaring Hittites, for example, adopted the practice from the Sumerians. Many prehistoric American stone statues also had inlaid eyes.
Professor Stephan Oppenheimer thinks that the Middle East civilizations may have been seeded by refugees from the sunken area of Sundaland. They would have had to wait until the 7-8,000 years ago for the Straits Of Malacca to open up. Previous to that, people would have migrated/sought refuge in the other direction.
After the Toba super-volcano event which the 'Hobbits' apparently weathered/survived on Flores.
I just remembered...there’s an image of the man Heyerdhal called The Mayor of Easter Island - he had bright red hair!
http://www.white-history.com/hwr6d_files/eired.jpg
http://www.celticnz.co.nz/Waitapu_Valley/Waitapu4.htm
Here’s the link and the story about the “enigmatic profile’ I posted earlier.
“Here in New Zealand the ancient people used these Egyptian/ South American measurements, as well as the Aztec quipu string knot devices, which were called by virtually the same name locally (kupu). Many regional plants (Karaka Berry), tubers (Sweet Potatoe) or cultural symbols (Hei-Tiki) found to be in the possession of Maori when maritime explorers arrived in the 1700’s have origins in South America. The Waitaha people of New Zealand claim a link to South America via Easter Island.
Figure 38: One of many incised boulders from the Taranaki region of New Zealand’s North Island, showing a raised relief face and headdress profile. Boulder incised designs of that district can look very “South American” and the headdress design shown is quite reminiscent of that depicted on the Quetzacoatl plumed serpent representations at Teotihuacan or the striped effect of Tutankhamun’s funerary mask from Egypt. The Meso-American “feathered serpent” representations also depict the “double spiral”, much used in Maori facial tattooing. The widely used “double spiral” design has a pedigree back to ancient Ireland or the Caucasoid “mummies of Urumchi”, China, etc., and is very old. The intricate pictographs found on these Taranaki boulders are generally faded and weather-worn, insinuating great age. Knowledge of the boulders is muted and largely suppressed in New Zealand and to date there has been little serious scholastic effort to trace the origins of the intricate patterning found on some of them.”
The ‘double spiral’ reference is interesting...
HA! Found it! One of the red-headed Easter Islanders photographed in his secret cave.
Sure I do, but that one just creeps me out...
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Published: January 18, 2008
The ancestral relationships of people living in the widely scattered islands of the Pacific Ocean, long a puzzle to anthropologists, may have been solved by a new genetic study, researchers reported Thursday.
In an analysis of the DNA of 1,000 individuals from 41 Pacific populations, an international team of scientists found strong evidence showing that Polynesians and Micronesians in the central and eastern islands had almost no genetic relationship to Melanesians, in the western islands like Papua New Guinea and the Bismarck and Solomons archipelagos.
The researchers also concluded that the genetic data showed that the Polynesians and Micronesians were most closely related to Taiwan Aborigines and East Asians. They said this supported the view that these migrating seafarers originated in Taiwan and coastal China at least 3,500 years ago.
The findings were described in the online journal Public Library of Science Genetics (www.plosgenetics.org) by researchers led by Jonathan S. Friedlaender, professor emeritus of biological anthropology at Temple University. He was assisted in the data analysis by his wife, Françoise R. Friedlaender, an independent researcher. Other participants included scientists in the islands and at the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation in Marshfield, Wis.
“Our analysis,” the scientists wrote, “indicates the ancestors of Polynesians moved through Melanesia relatively rapidly and only intermixed to a very modest degree with the indigenous populations there.”
Dr. Friedlaender of Temple said in an interview that the evidence was “substantial” and “solves a number of issues about the migration and settlement of Pacific people.”
In particular, he and other anthropologists not involved in the study said, the genetic research supported the “fast train” hypothesis. Increasing archaeological and linguistic evidence in recent years has suggested that ancestors of Micronesians and Polynesians had moved through Indonesia and Melanesia without having any significant contact there, culturally or genetically.
An alternative argument, the “slow boat” hypothesis, which had some support from male Y chromosome studies, raised the possibility that Polynesians were primarily Melanesians who had ventured on in their outrigger canoes. And a few anthropologists despaired of ever solving the mystery. Theirs was the “entangled bank” hypothesis.
The new genetic research, said Patrick V. Kirch, an anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who is an authority on Pacific cultures, was “overwhelming biological evidence for a clear population movement out of Southeast Asia and Taiwan to Polynesia.”
Dr. Kirch, who did not participate in the genetic study, said that it reinforced research showing that Polynesian speech patterns were unrelated to Melanesian languages, suggesting — along with discoveries of the distinctive Lapita pottery across the Pacific — links to Taiwan and China, not Melanesia. “The combination of evidence shows we really can read this history,” he said.
As Dr. Friedlaender said, “If it wasn’t exactly an express train, it was pretty fast, and very few passengers climbed aboard or got off along the way.”
In the research, scientists examined more than 800 genetic markers known to be useful in distinguishing the ancestry of people. These involved mitochondrial DNA, passed down through females, and the Y chromosomes in males. Previous investigations along these lines had been conducted on a much smaller scale, Dr. Friedlaender said.
The new test results were repeatedly analyzed with a software program recently developed to classify genetic similarities and variations among different populations.
Primary support for the study was provided by the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation of Anthropological Research, the National Geographic Society and the National Institutes of Health.
Further research to confirm the history of the Pacific diaspora, Dr. Friedlaender said, would require an expansion of genetic tests among people in the Philippines and Indonesia, regions that the migrants presumably passed through after leaving Taiwan more than 3,500 years ago, ultimately reaching as far as Hawaii and Easter Island. The Melanesians, on the other hand, probably arrived on their islands about 35,000 years ago, sometime later than the Aborigines reached Australia.
Years ago, a reporter who visited the Marshall Islands asked an aging Micronesian chief where his people came from long, long ago. “We have always been here,” he replied. Now, if it matters to them, his descendants have been given a more scientific answer.
Your image has been zotted by photobucket.
don't know how that happened, lost all the images I posted on that thread...it was two years ago. Reposting the one you referred to.
He kind of looks like the Tikis on Easter Island.
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