Tag: Bismarck

Population turnover in Remote Oceania shortly after initial settlement

oceania-ancient-migration

Open Access article Population Turnover in Remote Oceania Shortly after Initial Settlement, by Lipson, Skoglund, Spriggs, et al. (2018), based on the recent preprint at bioRxiv.

Summary:

Ancient DNA from Vanuatu and Tonga dating to about 2,900–2,600 years ago (before present, BP) has revealed that the “First Remote Oceanians” associated with the Lapita archaeological culture were directly descended from the population that, beginning around 5000 BP, spread Austronesian languages from Taiwan to the Philippines, western Melanesia, and eventually Remote Oceania. Thus, ancestors of the First Remote Oceanians must have passed by the Papuan-ancestry populations they encountered in New

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Language continuity despite population replacement in Remote Oceania

ancientdna-migrations-vanuatu

New article (behind paywall) Language continuity despite population replacement in Remote Oceania, by Posth et al., Nat. Ecol. Evol. (2018).

Abstract:

Recent genomic analyses show that the earliest peoples reaching Remote Oceania—associated with Austronesian-speaking Lapita culture—were almost completely East Asian, without detectable Papuan ancestry. However, Papuan-related genetic ancestry is found across present-day Pacific populations, indicating that peoples from Near Oceania have played a significant, but largely unknown, ancestral role. Here, new genome-wide data from 19 ancient South Pacific individuals provide direct evidence of a so-far undescribed Papuan expansion into Remote Oceania starting ~2,500 yr BP, far earlier than previously

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Population turnover in remote Oceania shortly after initial settlement

papuan-oceanian

Interesting preprint at BioRxiv by the team of the Reich lab, Population Turnover in Remote Oceania Shortly After Initial Settlement, by Mark Lipson, Pontus Skoglund, Matthew Spriggs, et al. (2018).

Abstract (emphasis mine):

Ancient DNA analysis of three individuals dated to ~3000 years before present (BP) from Vanuatu and one ~2600 BP individual from Tonga has revealed that the first inhabitants of Remote Oceania (“First Remote Oceanians”) were almost entirely of East Asian ancestry, and thus their ancestors passed New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the Solomon Islands with minimal admixture with the Papuan groups they encountered. However, all

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