Genetic Study Uncovers New Path to Polynesia

ScienceDaily ^ | Thursday, February 3, 2011 | University of Leeds

[SunkenCiv]

The islands of Polynesia were first inhabited around 3,000 years ago, but where these people came from has long been a hot topic of debate amongst scientists. The most commonly accepted view, based on archaeological and linguistic evidence as well as genetic studies, is that Pacific islanders were the latter part of a migration south and eastwards from Taiwan which began around 4,000 years ago.

But the Leeds research -- published February 3 in The American Journal of Human Genetics -- has found that the link to Taiwan does not stand up to scrutiny. In fact, the DNA of current Polynesians can be traced back to migrants from the Asian mainland who had already settled in islands close to New Guinea some 6-8,000 years ago.

The type of DNA extracted and analysed in this kind of study is that stored in the cell's mitochondria.

[SunkenCiv]

The islands of Polynesia were first inhabited around 3,000 years ago, but where these people came from has long been a hot topic of debate amongst scientists. The most commonly accepted view, based on archaeological and linguistic evidence as well as genetic studies, is that Pacific islanders were the latter part of a migration south and eastwards from Taiwan which began around 4,000 years ago. But the Leeds research has found that the link to Taiwan does not stand up to scrutiny. (Credit: iStockphoto)

[SunkenCiv]

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[Young Werther]

The Mitochoncrial DNA study was published in Scientific American around 1996. Mitochondrial DNA is found in the female of the species. It is passed from mother to daughter. While men may have multiple mates and progeny the female DNA is "pure" as passed from mother to daughter.

the 1998 study was based on scientists who wished to study the "Human Race" and it's migratory pattern. They called for the collection of umblical cords, (cleanest purest source of this DNA) from all over the world. Using a genetic technique to measure the current DNA and follow the DNa backward from mother to grandmother etc they were able to look back at the DNA migration and eventually find the source of present day human populations.

Inuits in Greenland, Peruvian Indians, Alaskan Eskimos, Indians in Oklahoma, Aztecs, Germanic tribes, English Celtics, Eytalians all of humanity shared a common Great Great Grandmother 100,000 years ago.

The scientist called her EVE

The reverse migratory trek of the mitochondrial DNA led the scientist to postulate that EVE lived in the Horn of Africa!

Ergo the whole of Humanity are Arican whatever. Therefore George Washington was our First African American President and soforth and so on!

[Godebert]

"Therefore George Washington was our First African American President and soforth and so on! "

He was also the first Neanderthal president according to some DNA studies.

[Young Werther]

..and a cousin of Fred!

[PENANCE]

I think this too will eventually be revealed to be too recent a timeline. I believe that polynesia was the primary route for Ice Age peoples (11k to 17k ya) to reach South America. The “Bering Land Bridge” theory has far too many huge holes in it; and I consider it ridiculous on its face.

[blam]

"I think this too will eventually be revealed to be too recent a timeline. I believe that polynesia was the primary route for Ice Age peoples (11k to 17k ya) to reach South America. The “Bering Land Bridge” theory has far too many huge holes in it; and I consider it ridiculous on its face. "

I can support both ideas. The kelp highway goes all the way from Japan to the tip of South America, easy pickings.

POLYNESIA
THE TRAIL OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS

[SunkenCiv]

I don't doubt that people were wandering around Beringia when it wasn't covered with water, but I don't think the Americas were isolated either. And I doubt that there was any impediment to the settlement of the Pacific, apart from the recency (and/or lack of habitibility) of some of the landmasses, most of which are small.

Madagascar was colonized from Indonesia perhaps 2000 years ago, which is pretty wild because there was plenty of traffic on the Indian Ocean and even circumnavigation of Africa in ancient times, even prehistoric times in the former case.

• Malagasy, the language of Madagascar · Malagasy is the language of Madagascar. Spoken by around 18 million Malagasy people (Malagasy is both the name of the language and the inhabitants of Madagascar), Malagasy has its origins in Indonesia and "most closely resembles Ma'anyan, a Malayo-Polynesian tongue spoken today in the Barito Valley of southern Borneo" (Tyson 2000). According to (Tyson 2000), around "93 percent of the basic vocabulary is Malayo-Polynesian in origin" while "most of the words relating to animal husbandry" are of Bantu (African) origin.

There's no known evidence of earlier habitation. Of course, there's also this little doo-dad:

• Ancient Crash, Epic Wave
• Did an Asteroid Impact Cause an Ancient Tsunami?

Maybe no one has dug deep enough. There are often political reasons for failure to dig -- perhaps particularly on island nations such as Madagascar, Japan, and even Britain.

[Pharmboy]

Males get their mitochondria from their mothers just as females do. Since the mitochondria are not in the nucleus but only in the cytoplasm, the very large egg gives its mitochondria to the embryo upon fertilization. The sperm has very little cytoplasm (and thus relatively few mitochondria) to give to the fertilized egg (it’s really just a nucleus with a tail). You can trace the maternal line through the male as well as the female.

[ElkGroveDan]

While men may have multiple mates and progeny the female DNA is "pure" as passed from mother to daughter.

Let me preface by noting that I have a thorough understanding of DNA and it's use in genetic studies. That said, the above statement is pure nonsense.

Promiscuity verses monogamy has exactly zero to do with the passing down of mitochondrial and/or yDNA. The mother could be a complete and total slut who had a child with every man in the villages, or she could be totally monogamous, in either case however her mtDNA is still going to be "pure" as passed on to any and all of her children. Likewise the father could be a sexual ally-cat and have kids with dozens of wives or just one. His paternal or yDNA will be handed down to any and all of his sons, intact and traceable.

The rates of mutation in the two may vary, with the mtDNA doing so at a slower rate, but that's not what was articulated in the gibberish quoted above.

[CholeraJoe]

with the mtDNA doing so at a slower rate,

As evidenced by my DNA. My mitochondrial (maternal) line goes back 40-60 millenia, my yDNA only 24 when the protoCelts came out of the Iberian refugium as the glaciers melted and within a few generations populated Britain.

[SatinDoll]

The people found in Terra del Fuego, it has just been recently determined, are genetically related to Australian aborigines.

There are archaeological sites being discovered in the Western Hemisphere that predate the Bering Land Bridge migrants, and the evidence indicates that the newcomers from Siberia slaughtered the already existing residents, with only the people in Terra del Fuego surviving into the 19th century.

[VOA]

bump from a guy that entered the world on a Polynesian island.

I’ll be back to check on this thread.

Love my parents, but I questioned their relocation to Oklahoma after
being in a Polynesian paradise.
(In retropect, my parents did the right thing given their economic situaion/options.)

[happygrl]

Hi cousin!

[Yollopoliuhqui]

The Bering land bridge hypothesis is junk science. Indian anthropologist, Vine Deloria, in his “Red Earth, White Lies” pretty much demolishes the Bering Straight hypothesis as well as North American megafauna extinction being due to human predation/hunting.

I want to know how Thor Heyerdahl’s ideas about Pacific island migrations hold up to this DNA work.

[colorado tanker]

Thanks, interesting thread.

Wherever the Polynesians came from they have to be the champion navigators of the ancient world.

[SunkenCiv]

Top two, anyway. :’)

[SunkenCiv]

[SunkenCiv]

Fathers can be influential too
by Eleanor Lawrence

Biologists have warned for some years that paternal mitochondria do penetrate the human egg and survive for several hours... Erika Hagelberg from the University of Cambridge, UK, and colleagues... were carrying out a study of mitochondrial DNAs from hundreds of people from Papua-New Guinea and the Melanesian islands in order to study the history of human migration into this region of the western Pacific... People from all three mitochondrial groups live on Nguna. And, in all three groups, Hagelberg's group found the same mutation, a mutation previously seen only in an individual from northern Europe, and nowhere else in Melanesia, or for that matter anywhere else in the world... Adam Eyre-Walker, Noel Smith and John Maynard Smith from the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK confirm this view with a mathematical analysis of the occurrence of the so-called 'homoplasies' that appear in human mitochondrial DNA... reanalysis of a selection of European and African mitochondrial DNA sequences by the Sussex researchers suggests that recombination is a far more likely cause of the homoplasies, as they find no evidence that these sites are particularly variable over all lineages.