December 21, 2012

Mitochondrial DNA haplogroup Q in Oceania

Even if a very specialized detail, this lineage may help to shed light on the colonization of Oceania:

Chris A. Corser et al., The Q2 Mitochondrial Haplogroup in Oceania. PLoS ONE 2012. Open accessLINK [ doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0052022]

Abstract

Many details surrounding the origins of the peoples of Oceania remain to be resolved, and as a step towards this we report seven new complete mitochondrial genomes from the Q2a haplogroup, from Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Kiribati. This brings the total to eleven Q2 genomes now available. The Q haplogroup (that includes Q2) is an old and diverse lineage in Near Oceania, and is reasonably common; within our sample set of 430, 97 are of the Q haplogroup. However, only 8 are Q2, and we report 7 here. The tree with all complete Q genomes is proven to be minimal. The dating estimate for the origin of Q2 (around 35 Kya) reinforces the understanding that humans have been in Near Oceania for tens of thousands of years; nevertheless the Polynesian maternal haplogroups remain distinctive. A major focus now, with regard to Polynesian ancestry, is to address the differences and timing of the ‘Melanesian’ contribution to the maternal and paternal lineages as people moved further and further into Remote Oceania. Input from other fields such as anthropology, history and linguistics is required for a better understanding and interpretation of the genetic data.

Figure 2. Overview of the Q haplogroup.
The dataset has 36 mitochondrial genomes including all eight Q3 sequences, 17 Q1, three Q2 genomes from Friedlaender et al. [28], one from Hudjashov et al. [36], together with the seven additional Q2a genomes reported here. The network has been proved the shortest possible (the minimum number of mutations) by using the techniques in Pierson et al. [40]. Differences in branching between the four equally parsimonious trees occur in the Q3 subgroup.

See also in this blog:

82 comments:

  1. The paper really doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know. We have always known that Q was much more ancient in New Guinea/Near Oceania than it was in remote Oceania. And we knew that both Q1 and Q2 had eventually reached Fiji and even the Cook Islands. However this comment:

    "A major focus now, with regard to Polynesian ancestry, is to address the differences and timing of the ‘Melanesian’ contribution to the maternal and paternal lineages as people moved further and further into Remote Oceania".

    Shows that the authors are nowhere near as confident as you are that Q moved east with the first wave into Remote Oceania. And this:

    "Input from other fields such as anthropology, history and linguistics is required for a better understanding and interpretation of the genetic data".

    I have many times tried to point out that such input in general supports a somewhat later movement of Q. Other interesting titbits in the diagram: Q3 looks to be much more a mainland haplogroup than do the other two. One early branch of Q2 is shown in Australia and an early Q1 is shown in Java. Another branch of Q1 is shown in the Philippines. So we yet again appear to have evidence of movement back across Wallace's Line.

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    1. Certainly I see this mostly as a bit of data: worth mentioning but not particularly striking in any way.

      I'm glad that you find people with the same ideas as you have. I remain confident however that Melanesian genetics arrived in "the first wave" and that it is Polynesian specifics what represent the second wave (logically). But whatever rocks your boat...

      Delete
  2. "Melanesian genetics arrived in "the first wave" and that it is Polynesian specifics what represent the second wave (logically)".

    It is not logical at all. It doesn't fit the distribution of Pacific Island phenotypes for a start, nor the pattern of Lapita expansion. Under you scenario you have to postualte that Polynesians traveled all the way from Taiwan to New Zealand without interacting with any populations along the way. I admit that is what many Europeans believed until a hundred years ago but it has been well and truly dropped by virtually everyone these days. Except for one or two who also insist that the Phoenicians came here as well.

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    1. It is logical and it does fit the pattern of Lapita (which is essentially a Melanesian culture of Oceanic languages, much more diverse than the Micro-Polynesian subfamily also linguistically).

      "Under you scenario you have to postualte that Polynesians traveled all the way from Taiwan to New Zealand without interacting with any populations along the way".

      Not at all. From Philippines to Tonga only and not "without interacting" but being more influenced than influential because they were few among many.

      Delete
  3. Not to join the argument above, but to mention another factor ...
    With the possible exception of Rapa Nui, no Pacific island was completely isolated either before or after Cook. An elder on Niue told me that historically they had to fend off raiders from Samoa, Tonga, and the Cook islands. As rape and abduction of young women is a common habit in raiders, I suspect that there was a low level of genetic interchange going on in all historical periods. So it is hard to know when and how one example of a haplotype might have arrived on an island.
    Having said that, obviously there is a strong founder effect on every island, the genes that land with the first canoe on a virgin shore will always predominate.

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    1. Of course. That must apply for minor lineages but there are major lineages all around like Y-DNA C2 which are clearly of Melanesian origin. Also in Far Melanesia (which is strongly coincident with the area of Early Lapita, along with some parts of Near Melanesia) the lineages are in most cases of (Near) Melanesian origins, what cannot be attributed to minor recent flow.

      Delete
  4. "With the possible exception of Rapa Nui, no Pacific island was completely isolated either before or after Cook".

    Rapa Nui is not actually the only exception. Most of Eastern Polynesia was fairly isolated although occasional storm tossed visitors mat have arrive in New Zealand and Hawaii. And more often in Central Polynesia such as the Cook Islands and Tahiti. Niue was basically part of the Tong/Samoa/Fiji region where we have well documented cases of contact, mostly unfriendly. Tonga gained control of the eastern Fiji islands in fact.

    "the genes that land with the first canoe on a virgin shore will always predominate".

    And that indicates that Y-DNA C2 and mt-DNA B4a were first beyond Fiji, and probably first to that group of islands.

    "It is logical and it does fit the pattern of Lapita (which is essentially a Melanesian culture of Oceanic languages, much more diverse than the Micro-Polynesian subfamily also linguistically)".

    You are conveniently forgetting that Lapita arrived in the Southern Solomons in the form of 'Late Lapita'. And that is the region of more dominance of Melanesian/New Guinea haplogroups.

    "From Philippines to Tonga only and not 'without interacting' but being more influenced than influential because they were few among many".

    You are the only person since about 1950 to believe that.

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    1. "You are conveniently forgetting that Lapita arrived in the Southern Solomons in the form of 'Late Lapita'".

      Not at all. That area is also high in the Asian-original and Polynesian-akin lineage mtDNA B4a. Even if it's not the "Polynesian motif" in many cases, they are closely related lineages which must have arrived in the same wave (Late Lapita).

      "And that is the region of more dominance of Melanesian/New Guinea haplogroups".

      Not at all, at least not in mtDNA which is the strongest in B4a other than Polynesia proper. I do not have data for the Y-DNA of specifically Southern Solomon and considering that we discussed the matter recently and I recycled whatever of value you had to offer, that means that you don't have any such data either (most likely).

      "You are the only person since about 1950 to believe that".

      Hahaha!

      Surely not but I wouldn't care if I was. I do not found my ideas only or mostly on what others may think. Nobody who matters does.

      Delete
  5. "Surely not but I wouldn't care if I was. I do not found my ideas only or mostly on what others may think. Nobody who matters does".

    So you're teaming up with all the Eurocentric racists whose beliefs have been thoroughly discredited over the last 50 years then. The idea that the Polynesians represent one of the 'Lost Tribes' of Israel.

    "like Y-DNA C2 which are clearly of Melanesian origin".

    If you are prepared to include Wallacea within Melanesia, yes.

    "Also in Far Melanesia (which is strongly coincident with the area of Early Lapita, along with some parts of Near Melanesia) the lineages are in most cases of (Near) Melanesian origins, what cannot be attributed to minor recent flow.

    Also in Far Melanesia (which is strongly coincident with the area of Early Lapita, along with some parts of Near Melanesia) the lineages are in most cases of (Near) Melanesian origins, what cannot be attributed to minor recent flow.

    "Also in Far Melanesia (which is strongly coincident with the area of Early Lapita, along with some parts of Near Melanesia) the lineages are in most cases of (Near) Melanesian origins, what cannot be attributed to minor recent flow".

    Why can it not be attributed to recent gene flow? That is the conclusion of most who have studied the prehistory of the region.

    "Even if it's not the 'Polynesian motif' in many cases, they are closely related lineages which must have arrived in the same wave (Late Lapita)".

    I have tried to explain elsewhere that B4a1a1a was not the only B4a haplogroup to move into the Pacific. In fact it was not the only B haplogroup to move at least some of the way. And the 'Late Lapita' has nothing at all to do with Polynesia. From one of the papers you linked to on the subject the Late Lapita appears to have moved west from Santa Cruz into the Southern Solomons, presumably after Melanesian haplogroups had arrived in at least Santa Cruz.

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    1. "So you're teaming up with"...

      With nobody.

      "... the Polynesians represent one of the 'Lost Tribes' of Israel".

      My ass!

      "If you are prepared to include Wallacea within Melanesia, yes".

      Not the case: C2a is not original from Wallacea, regardless of whatever you consider it it be. C2a is original from Papua and/or nearby islands by the Northeast. Narrow concept Near Melanesia only.

      Because:

      1. They are the vast majority of the ancestry (and also there's no indication of genocide).

      2. Far Melanesians have much more linguistic and cultural diversity than Polynesians. Melanesians in general make up most of the Oceanic language family in terms of diversity: they are the norm, Polynesians are the exception.

      "I have tried to explain elsewhere that B4a1a1a was not the only B4a haplogroup to move into the Pacific".

      Why do you have to vindicate your alleged contributions all the time. Focus to the debate at hand and stop being so narcissistic.

      Delete
  6. "Far Melanesians have much more linguistic and cultural diversity than Polynesians. Melanesians in general make up most of the Oceanic language family in terms of diversity: they are the norm, Polynesians are the exception".

    I would have thought it was obvious even to you that the 'Melanesians' who speak Austronesian languages have adopted the languages. They spoke Papuan languages before the Austronesians arrived. The Papuan languages survive through virtually all of New Guinea and parts of the Northern Solomon Islands including New Britain and New Ireland:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papuan_languages

    "Why do you have to vindicate your alleged contributions all the time. Focus to the debate at hand and stop being so narcissistic".

    If you knew what you were talking about it would be worth carrying on, but obviously you're not prepared to learn a thing.

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    1. "They spoke Papuan languages before the Austronesians arrived".

      Whatever the exact genesis in what is now Papua-New Guinea, they were already Oceanic speakers when they arrived to Vanuatu, Kanaky and the other remote islands. So they were "the Austronesians who arrived" to Far Melanesia.

      Delete
  7. It is remotely possible that you will find this interesting. A Master's thesis by a Maori concerning the political aspects of the survival of the language ('te reo Maori'). It presumably has aspects of similarity to the survival of Basque:

    http://aut.researchgateway.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10292/2463/AnaruN.pdf?sequence=3

    You can probably guess the meaning of most Maori expressions, but you need to know that 'whakapapa' basically means 'ancestry' or 'pedigree'.

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    1. Surely interesting but right now I'm trying to close some mostly unnecessary debates with you for the day so I can go to bed with something done.

      Delete
  8. "With nobody ... My ass!"

    I forgot. last night I glanced through a 1980 book 'The First new Zealanders' by Philip Houghton. To give you some idea of his credentials:

    http://australianmuseum.net.au/Uploads/Journals/17714/148_complete.pdf

    http://australianmuseum.net.au/Uploads/Journals/17709/144.pdf

    Concerning the origin of the Polynesians:

    "Some would trace them, pretty much Polynesians already in physical form, a sea-going people, out of Indonesia, skirting the larger islands of Melanesia, and somehow preserving the purity of their genes in their eastward progress- a remarkable feat".

    That remarkable feat is basically what you seem to be claiming. The author obviously doesn't accept it as being at all likely. And that bel;ioef is a continuation of the ealier 'Aryan Maori' belief which had Polynesians doing much the same thing but starting from India:

    http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/european-ideas-about-maori/5

    Again you seem pretty much committed to a very similar belief. Everyone originated in, or at least passed through, India. Back to Joy's comment of a few days ago:

    "I suspect that there was a low level of genetic interchange going on in all historical periods. So it is hard to know when and how one example of a haplotype might have arrived on an island".

    Again a quote from the above book:

    "Even a superficial look at the skeletal form of the prehistoric people of the Polynesian tringale suggests a remarkable sameness, an homogeneity of form through out - allowing that the skeletal record is incomplete and that there is archaeological and linguistic evidence of the penetration of Melanesia into the western fringes of Polynesia."

    So, 'archaeological and linguistic evidence of the penetration of Melanesia into the western fringes of Polynesia'! What haplogroups could that penetration possibly involve? Or did the 'penetration' leave no genetic trace in the modern haplogroups? I think you know my answer so I won't bother.

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    1. "... out of Indonesia"...

      Almost 100% certain that this claim is incorrect: instead of Indonesia it should read Philippines and instead of imagining them as they are now at that stage he should imagine them as regular Filipinos. The Melanesian admixture happened on route.

      "So, 'archaeological and linguistic evidence of the penetration of Melanesia into the western fringes of Polynesia'!"

      Vague claims of no precision are irrelevant to me. You read stuff and you give blind credit to everyone but me. Go debate with them.

      Delete
  9. My mtDNA tests came back as Q2a, since my mother is Fijian. This study is really interesting considering the break off from mtDNA M occurred in the pacific. I guess it's safe to say that Q is genuinely a pacific trait.

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    1. Yes, absolutely. It think it was quite obvious from previous materials (cf. "see also" section) but for Q2a specifically this paper is quite explicit.

      I'm glad that it's of personal use to you.

      Delete
  10. "I guess it's safe to say that Q is genuinely a pacific trait".

    Specifically southwest Pacific in origin though. And certainly not at all common beyond Fiji, although Q1 is present as a very small minority in Central and Eastern Polynesia. This is shown in the diagram Maju posted and has been known for some time. Q2a is a subclade of Q2, probably originally from the Bismark archipelago. Q1 is almost certainly originally from the New Guinea mainland.

    "Almost 100% certain that this claim is incorrect: instead of Indonesia it should read Philippines"

    Wrong again Maju. It is usually accepted they moved to Halmahera before moving out to the islands north of New Guinea. Halmahera is in Indonesia and is almost certainly where mt-DNA B4a and Y-DNA C2 teamed up.

    "The Melanesian admixture happened on route".

    True, although C2 was probably already 'Papuan' in phenotype, so the 'Melanesian' mixture was reasonably strong right from Halmahera although it was added to in regions west of Fiji by other haplogroups such as Q.

    "Vague claims of no precision are irrelevant to me".

    You are being idiotic here. They are not 'Vague claims of no precision'. The claim was made by a widely respected worker in the field and by the 1980s the idea was so widely accepted (except by you because it doesn't fit with what you want to believe) that the author didn't even bother to provide any reference for the statement. The rest of the book is peppered with references. Besides which I have in the past provided references which claim exactly the same thing. But as usual you refuse to believe anything that doesn't fit your preconceived belief. Your inability to accept 'archaeological and linguistic evidence of the penetration of Melanesia into the western fringes of Polynesia' is simply a reflection of your inability to accept reality when it rears up and bites you in the behind.

    "You read stuff and you give blind credit to everyone but me".

    They have become experts in their field over years of research whereas you have consistently shown an appalling ignorance of the colonisation of the Pacific. And, what's more, have shown absolutely no interest in learning anything about the region.

    "they were already Oceanic speakers when they arrived to Vanuatu, Kanaky and the other remote islands. So they were 'the Austronesians who arrived' to Far Melanesia".

    Yes, and then Melanesian people arrived and adopted the languages spoken by the first people to reach Vanuatu and New Caledonia, just as the very few Melanesians who arrived in Fiji adopted Fijian languages.

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    1. The case of Q and other Melanesia-originated mtDNA lineages among Polynesians is like the case of X among Native Americans: there is an patrilineage counterpart which is clearly dominant in each of those groups (Y-DNA Q and C2a respectively) whose origins are the same of zone.

      However while among proto-Amerindians in Siberia it is relatively easy to understand how the population originally Central Asia (Western affinity) admixed with more and more East Asian women (mostly) of lineages A, B, C and D, as they moved Eastwards. In the case of Polynesians we don't see that possible source pool and we also see strong founder effects among the East Asian (Filipino, early-Austronesian) lineages, both the famous mtDNA B4a one and the less-famous Y-DNA O3, which is the second main patrilineage of Polynesians.

      So we can only construe that an early Austronesian population of East Asian stock (Filipinos, so to say), let's call them "the seed population", arrived to somewhere Near Melanesia (not Hamalmera that I can discern but rather the islands and coasts of PNG) where they exerted their linguistic influence, "converting" some Melanesian groups to their ethnic identity. These then expanded to Vanuatu, Kanaky and beyond with the Lapita culture.

      A less admixed (but also admixed, notably with the incorporation of Melanesian male lineage C2a) branch of the "seed population" went all the way to Samoa and Tonga in the Late Lapita phase, from where later they would expand to all Polynesia. We can detect most of the Polynesian founder effects already in Samoa (Tonga also but less similar, so they are clearly related but not the main branch of Polynesian founders, Fidji is more Melanesian in everything because it was colonized with Early Lapita).

      "They are not 'Vague claims of no precision'. The claim was made by a widely respected worker"...

      Claims to authority. I mean seriously: data is all I eat. Appeals to God and the Pope will get you nowhere with me. You want me to believe your shit, send me a copy (email me and I'll send you my address). I have read nowhere in papers and articles all published much later than "1980" that there was any second migration after Lapita, rather the opposite. Your "authority" probably confused something.

      ... "and then Melanesian people arrived and adopted the languages spoken by the first people to reach Vanuatu and New Caledonia"...

      Nonsense! You claim that with zero evidence and is illogical from all aspects: archaeological, genetic and linguistic.

      You're just a bag full of fables, often with a racist tone to them.

      Delete
  11. "In the case of Polynesians we don't see that possible source pool"

    What. You obviously haven't bothered looking. Y-DNA C2 and mt-DNA B4a are well founded in Eastern Indonesia, the region where most accept that the movement into the Pacific originated before reaching the Admiralty Islands.

    "and the less-famous Y-DNA O3, which is the second main patrilineage of Polynesians".

    I agree that O3 is prominent in the Austronesian movement east, but it is not the only Y-DNA.

    "So we can only construe that an early Austronesian population of East Asian stock (Filipinos, so to say), let's call them 'the seed population', arrived to somewhere Near Melanesia (not Hamalmera that I can discern but rather the islands and coasts of PNG)"

    I with that that so far although I think Halmahera was important and cannot be ignored.

    "where they exerted their linguistic influence, 'converting' some Melanesian groups to their ethnic identity".

    Again, I agree. Although this 'seed population' did not linger long in the Admiralty Islands where it developed the Lapita pottery.

    "These then expanded to Vanuatu, Kanaky and beyond with the Lapita culture".

    But the first bearers of Lapita eastward were the people who had emerged from Eastern Indonesia. The Melanesian people had not become a major proportion of the eastward movement. That is to some considerable extent shown by the fact that the 'Melanesian' haplogroups tend to be more common on larger islands where they were able to directly transfer their inland culture to the new islands rather than continuing with a coastal culture.

    "A less admixed (but also admixed, notably with the incorporation of Melanesian male lineage C2a) branch of the 'seed population' went all the way to Samoa and Tonga in the Late Lapita phase"

    That is the mistake you persist in making. They had reached Samoa and Tonga before the Late Lapita had developed, and the Late Lapita certainly had nothing to do with the migration to those eastern islands. The Late Lapita looks to be mainly a Santa Cruz development and it moved back west into the Southern Solomons. One of the papers you linked to in another blog said exactly that.

    "Fidji is more Melanesian in everything because it was colonized with Early Lapita"

    No. Fiji is 'more Melanesian in everything' because of later arrivals from Vanuatu and New Caledonia who had in turn become 'more Melanesian". Surely that is a simple thing to understand. It is certainly widely accepted by everyone involved in the study of Pacific people. It is just your Eurocentric position blinds you to what has actually happened in the Pacific.

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    1. No, B4a is not "strong" in Eastern Indonesia: it is almost only an Oceanian phenomenon with limited impact in the Malay area, including Madagascar. Papers that we have already discussed in length determine with great certainty that the origin of B4a for all the Malayo-Polynesian area is in Philippines, probably in Mindanao.

      C2(xC2a) is irrelevant for our debate, as we have already discussed. Only (or almost only) C2a matters for the Oceanic area and this one is necessarily of Papuan origin.

      "I agree that O3 is prominent in the Austronesian movement east, but it is not the only Y-DNA".

      Of course but it is the Y-DNA which must have arrived with mtDNA B4a, incorporating the Melanesian lineage Y-DNA C2a, as well as minor Melanesian mtDNA ones like Q.

      "Although this 'seed population' did not linger long in the Admiralty Islands where it developed the Lapita pottery".

      We cannot attribute most of Lapita, certainly not Early Lapita, to this "seed population" but to Melanesians of mostly Oceanic language, whose biological relation with this group was marginal at best. There's not a single hint of connection of Early Lapita with the Polynesians or the mtDNA-related peoples of the Solomons. All the B4a-strong populations (Polynesians and most Solomonians) are related to Late Lapita exclusively.

      "But the first bearers of Lapita eastward were the people who had emerged from Eastern Indonesia".

      Lapita has no apparent connection whatsoever with Eastern Indonesia, nor, as far as I can discern, have any peoples of the Oceanic languages area. The Austronesian movement to Wallacea and Western Indonesia is only related at the origin (in Philippines) and it is that double vector of expansion what marks the divergence of Oceanic and Malay. If there were contacts between Wallacea and the Lapita area these were probably late and minor. In all our discussions you have not been able to provide any evidence of a Wallacea-Lapita connection of any sort; you are again just being stubborn out of beliefs and prejudice and not facts nor reason.

      "That is to some considerable extent shown by the fact that the 'Melanesian' haplogroups tend to be more common on larger islands"...

      Where a population replacement, as the one you imagine (with no evidence) would be most improbable (large island = large population = near-impervious to genocide). But it's not a matter of size of the islands but of where Lapita culture reached in stage I (most Island Melanesia) and stage II (Solomons and Near Polynesia).

      It is very simple:

      Lapita I: Near and Far Melanesia except most of the Solomons: no B4a!
      Lapita II: Near Polynesia and the Solomons: B4a en masse!

      So B4a (and hence the proto-Polynesian migration) corresponds not to Lapita I but to Late Lapita only. It can't be any other way unless you invoke a highly disruptive host of imaginary (unfounded, unreal) population movements and removals.

      "That is the mistake you persist in making. They had reached Samoa and Tonga before the Late Lapita had developed, and the Late Lapita certainly had nothing to do with the migration to those eastern islands".

      False. We have discussed that before. The colonization of Samoa-Tonga (and almost also Fidji itself) corresponds with Late Lapita. A very late branch reached to Marquesas if my memory is correct but that's not the bulk of Late Lapita but a very late offshoot.

      Delete
  12. "Nonsense! You claim that with zero evidence and is illogical from all aspects: archaeological, genetic and linguistic".

    Unfortunately for your rant: plenty of evidence.

    "Claims to authority. I mean seriously: data is all I eat".

    I have linked numerous times to data that shows exactly what I am saying. It is so widely accepted that even Fiji tourist organisations claim as much, in a somewhat romanticised fashion:

    http://blog.captaincook.com.fj/fijis-melanesian-polynesian-history/

    "it’s widely agreed that two distinct races of people, the Melanesian and Polynesian races, first settled Fiji"

    "Melanesian people came to Fiji from nearby islands, including Vanuatu, New Caledonia and the eastern Solomon Islands".

    "The Lapita people were the other settlers of Fiji. These people came from an area of New Caledonia where significant deposits of their unique forms of pottery were found. Lapita pottery is defined by the geometric designs that were created by stamping the unfired clay with an implement that can be likened to a tooth, and examples of this pottery have been found in New Guinea and further east in Samoa".

    "Much evidence suggests that the Lapita people were the first settlers of Fiji and that they came from Southeast Asia via New Guinea and New Caledonia. These people settled on the major islands of Fiji and close to the shorelines of these islands.

    "It is believed that the Melanesian people came to Fiji some time later and settled in the less hospitable and accommodating areas of the islands, located further inland".

    And Lonely Planet:

    http://www.lonelyplanet.com/fiji/history

    "
    The original inhabitants of Fiji called their home Viti. These were Lapita people, probably from Vanuatu, who arrived about 1220 BC and stayed for only a short while before disappearing from the archaeological record. Their descendants, who became assimilated with people who arrived from Melanesia, were coastal dwellers, who initially relied on fishing and seem to have lived in relative peace. Around 500 BC a shift towards agriculture occurred along with an expansion of population - probably due to further incursions from other parts of Melanesia - that led to an increase in intertribal feuding. Cannibalism became common and in times of war, villages moved to ring-ditched fortified sites. By around AD 1000 Tongan invasions had started and continued sporadically until the arrival of Europeans".

    Have a look at Navatu pottery, a second movement fom Melanesia into Fiji. I know I'm wasting my time because I have linked to this before:

    http://archaeology.about.com/od/shthroughsiterms/qt/Sigatoka-Sand-Dunes.htm

    "The Navatu phase refers to post-Lapita occupations in Fiji, dated between 2100-900 years ago (BP), with cultural characteristics thought to have been influenced by contact with Vanuatu or New Caledonia in central Melanesia".

    Even Wikipedia:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Fiji

    "Austronesian peoples are believed to have settled in the Fijian islands some 3,500 years ago, with Melanesians following around a thousand years later."

    This paper deals primarily with contact between the islands of Fiji but also mentions continuing, although fluctuating, contact with islands further west and east:

    http://ejournal.anu.edu.au/index.php/bippa/article/viewFile/230/220

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    1. "... plenty of evidence"...

      Nowhere to be found. Either you begin building your argumentations on facts or I'm going to get very angry at you. I already am in fact. I spend almost every day hours rebuking your almost systematically wrong, unfounded and undocumented nonsense.

      And you are not paying me enough for that (zero is enough for nothing).

      "it’s widely agreed"...

      Go to agree with the dumbs who agree with you...

      Please! Go...

      All that is nothing but beliefs. Ideas founded on nothing but fantasy.

      Delete
  13. My last effort on thi post, but I'm sure you won't agree with the conclusions:

    http://hammerlab.biosci.arizona.edu/publications/Cox_2008_PopulationGeneticsResearchProgress_Chap2_p45.pdf

    "Nevertheless, the discrete distribution of some mtDNA and Y-chromosome lineages also supports later movements from northern Island Melanesia to at least the Reefs-Santa Cruz group (Friedlaender et al. 2002) and the northern parts of Vanuatu (Cox 2003:140). Melanesian lineages may have dispersed to Fiji at a comparatively late date as well (Campbell 1995:4-5)".

    "A more parsimonious explanation is that this spread was facilitated by novel Neolithic technologies introduced by Lapita peoples with ultimate Asian ancestry spreading eastward from Island Southeast Asia (Spriggs 1997). If colonists derived from Pleistocene-era populations in Melanesia took part in this population dispersal, the homogeneous material culture of the earliest settlements in Remote Oceania implies that they adopted their new cultural lifestyle quickly. The first settlers crossing into Remote Oceania were probably already partially admixed (for instance, see parallels in
    Devlin et al. 2001), probably in Island Melanesia rather than further west (Hill and Serjeantson 1989), with subsequent migratory contributions trending eastward in later centuries (Friedlaender et al. 2002, Cox 2003)".

    "Following the initial settlement of Remote Oceania, there was considerable mobility between the Solomon and Vanuatu Archipelagos and Fiji. Spriggs (1997:154 ff.) presents evidence that these island chains later underwent trade contraction, adopted an ‘inwardlooking’ approach, and demonstrably reduced their mobility near the end of the Lapita period around 2,000 BP. The rapid drop in Melanesian lineage frequencies near Fiji may simply represent an eastward limit to the drift of Melanesian populations at that time. Alternately, this ‘Melanesianisation’ may be relatively recent (Campbell 1995). Only these, or similarly complex scenarios, can account for the high frequency of Melanesian population markers in Vanuatu and Fiji – reaching nearly 100% in some populations eastward of the Near/Remote
    Oceania boundary (Cox 2003)".

    "The key point is that genetic profiles from Melanesia to Polynesia do not change particularly abruptly (Figure 5), perhaps due to significant population mobility during later periods. The Near/Remote Oceania division may be an incredibly useful concept for conceptualizing human demographic processes during the Pleistocene (and for explaining the distribution of some terrestrial animals; Austin 1999, Matisoo-Smith and Robins 2004), but it does not adequately reflect human diversity in this region today (Clark 2003b, D’Arcy 2003)".

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    1. So where is the FACT that would make me change my mind. Nothing but opinions.

      This is the closest they get to a factoid:

      "The key point is that genetic profiles from Melanesia to Polynesia do not change particularly abruptly (Figure 5)"...

      In comparison with what? With the changes in Indonesia, where Austronesian human colonization was minimal in most places and where there are some semi-sharp boundaries inside Wallacea and with Papua.

      Notice that they are talking only Y-DNA. In mtDNA the boundary would be rather abrupt because it's easy to see it in the maps of B4a distribution, which are almost binary.

      In Y-DNA there is no sharp boundary between Melanesia and Indonesia because C2a (probably measured as C2, or even just C, judging from the reference map fig.4), but that is rather wrong) smoothes it all. If they'd evaluate O3 only they'd see a quite abrupt change.

      So the key of all is that the primary landscape of Melanesian of Oceanic language, a secondary wave of proto-Polynesians added up, causing major founder effects in Samoa-Tonga (and maybe to some extent in Fiji). However before those founder effects were done, they heavily mixed, mostly by the Y-DNA side, with Melanesians of Oceanic language, what blurrs the picture to the point that some like you cannot see anything anymore (or so it seems).

      Delete
  14. I remain to be convinced that you know far more about the subject than do the members of the Hammer Lab in Arizona:

    http://hammerlab.biosci.arizona.edu/people.html

    In fact I am certain you know far less on the subject of genetics than do undergraduates at the university.

    "So the key of all is that the primary landscape of Melanesian of Oceanic language, a secondary wave of proto-Polynesians added up, causing major founder effects in Samoa-Tonga (and maybe to some extent in Fiji)".

    That is complete rubbish. Se if you can find anyone who knows anything about the subject that would agree with you there.

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    1. I don't even really disagree with Cox: I disagree with your interpretation of his opinions and appeal to them. I agree with him on the data (facts) and disregard, as usual, the opinions issued, sometimes without sufficient meditation around them and which may have changed by now (four years later, after many other materials and corresponding opinions have been published).

      You are just appealing to authority but there are many authorities here. I just could not care less and will not bother imitating your scholastic style.

      Delete
  15. "If they'd evaluate O3 only they'd see a quite abrupt change".

    And from that you jump to the conclusion that O3 moved in one massive voyage from the Philippines to Polynesia without stopping along the way: 'a secondary wave of proto-Polynesians added up, causing major founder effects in Samoa-Tonga (and maybe to some extent in Fiji)'. Unfortunately for your belief C2 does much the same. From Ebizur's comments some time back:

    "Also, I have mentioned before that Papua New Guinea marks the beginning of a zone of infrequent occurrence of C2*-M38(xC2a-M208) that extends eastward through Island Melanesia and Polynesia, with the apparent exception of at least the island of Maewo in Vanuatu. Most extant C2*-M38(xC2a-M208) seems to be confined to eastern Indonesia, including the islands of Wallacea and the western half of New Guinea. However, a comparison of the data sets of Mona et al. (2007) and Scheinfelt et al. (2006) reveals that this is not because C2a-M208 "replaces" C2*-M38 throughout this broad zone; instead, it appears that both C2*-M38 and C2a-M208 are quite rare in Island melanesia (especially the Solomon Islands, including Bougainville), but on the rare occasions when haplogroup C does occur in island Melenesia, it is about equally likely (and in Vanuatu, perhaps even more likely) to belong to C2*-M38 as it is to belong to C2a-M208. C2a-M208 only starts to become notably frequent in the area around Fiji ... "

    So from your perspective C2 should also have moved from Western New Guinea to Fiji in one giant leap while O3 did much the same from the Philippines. Unlikely scenarios in both cases. Surely the distribution of both O3 and C2 in Melanesia fits far more closely the idea that its presence there has been obscured by the later expansion of 'Melanesian' haplogroups. That fits exactly Murray Cox's explanation for the varied presence and absence of steep clines through the Pacific.

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    1. NOT "without stopping along the way".

      They did not make a dent on an already established Melanesian Lapita I population. In fact the dent was made upon them in terms of mostly Y-DNA C2a.

      Delete
  16. "They did not make a dent on an already established Melanesian Lapita I population"

    Of course not. The WERE the Lapita I population. Along with C2.

    "In fact the dent was made upon them in terms of mostly Y-DNA C2a".

    How do you come to that conclusion? Ebizur stated that C2 in any form is absent through much of the Solomon Islands so if that haplogroup was responsible for the 'dent' in O3 C2 itself has also suffered a dent. And O3 is not entirely absent between the Philippines and Fiji. According to this paper it has been found alnog the Papua New Guinea coast and on the islands to the southeast. Interestingly you can see that O1a2 made it to the Admiralty Islands and to the Papua New Guinea coast and the islands to the southeast:

    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982209021204

    By the way, concerning your comments about Halmahera. Anyone moving between the Philippines and New Guinea would pass at least as close as two or three metres from Halmahera.

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    1. Lapita II in Near Polynesia and Solomon may not have been the same thing, at least judging from DNA. More like two phenomenons only linked by chronology, generic cultural frame and B4a.

      " And O3 is not entirely absent between the Philippines and Fiji. According to this paper it has been found alnog the Papua New Guinea coast and on the islands to the southeast".

      That is coherent with all I say, more so as it is found in "PNG-Coast/Islands" to the exclusion of Admiralties, Bismark and Boungaville. So they are talking of the Eastern half of the New Guinea landmass, specifically its coasts and nearby islands.

      However I would not dare to pinpoint any too precise location for the genesis of the proto-Polynesian population because the diverse genetic "ingredients" have greatest affinities with this or that locality in PNG (and sometimes also in West Papua but this one seems redundant) and a founder effect has too much randomness implicit to bother looking for the most similar "origin": none will be (unlike it'd happen if the settlement would have been done from many origins and in many successive waves from the same region, in which case we'd see a strong pattern similitude, as happens with Euro-Americans, etc.)

      "Anyone moving between the Philippines and New Guinea would pass at least as close as two or three metres from Halmahera".

      Maybe (they could go via Micronesia also or straight across the open Ocean) but the case is that there is no genetic nor archaeological clue leading to Halmahera in relation with Polynesians or Lapita. It all begins in PNG or at the very least West Papua. So they passed by quite fast... if they did at all.

      Delete
  17. Sorry, I missed this:

    "the opinions issued, sometimes without sufficient meditation around them and which may have changed by now (four years later, after many other materials and corresponding opinions have been published)".

    So what, exactly, has changed in the last four years that may lead him to change his conclusions? Surely his main conclusion is that shallow clines develop when there is considerably gene exchange over the boundary and steep clines develop at the front of an advancing population. That conclusion would still hold today and the clines he draws attention to are just as steep or just as gradual as they were four years ago.

    "You are just appealing to authority but there are many authorities here".

    OK. See if you can come up with an authority whose conclusions coincide with yours on the matter of Austronesian expansion into the Pacific. There is no shortage of authorities that agree with my interpretation although of course in my case that interpretation has been made from the result of years of reading on the subject by those authorities.

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    1. "OK. See if you can come up with an authority"...

      NO! I do not want to appeal to authority. That's intellectually dishonest!

      Delete
  18. "It all begins in PNG or at the very least West Papua. So they passed by quite fast... if they did at all".

    So this is my understanding of how you see the history of Melanesia/Lapita. People of Melanesia who had had no contact with SE Asia for thousands of years somehow had adopted a southeast Asian language, had suddenly adopted pottery that shows links to SE Asia, and had suddenly developed a boating technology that enabled them to expand beyond the region of Near Oceania that they had occupied for thousands of years. Remember, all this without any outside contact at all. To me that seems an absolutely stupid stand to take.

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    1. Not at all. Obviously there were influences from Philippines and one of them ended being the Polynesian wave. The exact process is difficult to unravel but I don't think discussing with you helps because you are not interested in that, only in imposing your ideas to reality and to my poor tired existence - also it may be nearly impossible because of the the unavoidable founder effects (expansion of small "lucky" lineages) and drift (tendency to erasure of those very lineages where they were just a small minority).

      Delete
  19. "Obviously there were influences from Philippines and one of them ended being the Polynesian wave".

    And those influences were quite considerable. For a start no matter what 'molecular-clockology' you use Polynesian mt-DNA B4a1a1a has a deeper origin in Taiwan, followed by the Philippines. Again, independent of any 'molecular-clockology' the Malayo-Polynesian branch of Austronesian is just one of several Austronesian language families in Taiwan. And Lapita is just one of several SE Asian-derived pottery styles in New Guinea and along its coast. That argues in favour of the 'express train model' of eastward Austronesian expansion.

    "The exact process is difficult to unravel but I don't think discussing with you helps because you are not interested in that"

    On the contrary I am exactly 'interested in that', the unraveling the strands of the Polynesian expansion. The process is not at all 'difficult to unravel' if you are prepared to abandon a few prejudices.

    "it may be nearly impossible because of the the unavoidable founder effects"

    Most of the links I've supplied here state very definitely that there were actually few founder effect events in the movement into the Pacific. To and fro movement led to fairly shallow clines except in one or two places. And those steep clines provide evidence (if you're prepared to accept it as such) of being the advancing front of a recent, even continuing, genetic expansion.

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    1. "And those influences were quite considerable".

      Your own arguments do not support that claim:

      → "mt-DNA B4a1a1a"... → B4a in general is not really relevant for Lapita I, being only apparent in relation with Lapita II (Polynesia and Solomons).

      → "Taiwan"... → doesn't seem to matter at all in the Malayo-Polynesian phase of Austronesian expansion and certainly not in the Polynesian one. Who is "gardening in Eden" now? The Malayo-Polynesian expansion is rooted in Philippines and not at all in Taiwan. The Oceanic expansion is rooted in Philippines and Near Melanesia (each are playing a different yet complementary role to the other's). Taiwan is irrelevant by this stage.

      "On the contrary I am exactly 'interested in that', the unraveling the strands of the Polynesian expansion. The process is not at all 'difficult to unravel' if you are prepared to abandon a few prejudices".

      What I read as meaning: I already have my own pre-formatted explanation and I am not interesting in exploring any other possibility.

      You are not interested in unraveling the details of the process because for you the subtleties of Melanesian appropriation of the Austronesian phenomoenon do not even exist, they are anathema. You need to invent a second wave-cum-genocide (and with no archaeological support) to explain that all the Lapita I area is Melanesian and that all Oceanic branches except Polynesian are spoken by people of dark complexion and kinky hair.

      You are not interested in reality: only on your pre-fabricated fantasy of irking racist tinges.

      "Most of the links I've supplied here state very definitely that there were actually few founder effect events in the movement into the Pacific".

      Polynesian genetics are all a brutal founder effect, reducing genetic diversity to almost one single maternal lineage and two paterna ones. It's even more extreme in that than the OoA or the first settlement of America. Nothing in your links says otherwise because there's no way to close our eyes to that fact.

      You may want to gouge your eyes out of their sockets by now, as you are so stubbornly entrenched on your pseudo-truth.

      Delete
  20. "'mt-DNA B4a1a1a'... → B4a in general is not really relevant for Lapita I, being only apparent in relation with Lapita II (Polynesia and Solomons)".

    That is complete rubbish Maju. B4a1a1a is the ONLY mt-DNA haplogroup that spreads through the whole lapita region. Given that pottery was introduced to Melanesia from the Philippines it also follows that B4a1a1a is the ONLY mt-DNA haplogroup that is spread along the whole route and, what's more, almost entirly confined to that route. B4a1a1a is almost unknown in the New Guinea mainland and where present is strung out along the northern coastline. Thhe only mt-DNA that comes close to a complete Lapita distribution is M28, and it certainly did not come from further east at any recent period.

    "→ 'Taiwan'... → doesn't seem to matter at all in the Malayo-Polynesian phase of Austronesian expansion and certainly not in the Polynesian one".

    Taiwan is obvioulsy very relevant to the deeper origin of Malayo-Polynesians. You may prefer to deny that it is so but you'd have a great deal of difficulty convincing anyone else of such an airy fairy theory.

    "The Malayo-Polynesian expansion is rooted in Philippines and not at all in Taiwan".

    But the language has its origin in Taiwan.

    "What I read as meaning: I already have my own pre-formatted explanation and I am not interesting in exploring any other possibility".

    I am certainly interested in considering any other possibility but you ideas lack any credence whatsoever. They do not fit all the evidence, and surely ALL the evidence is what we have to consider.

    "for you the subtleties of Melanesian appropriation of the Austronesian phenomoenon do not even exist, they are anathema".

    The Melanesians certainly appropriated the Austronesian phenomenon but they didn't invent it. The language, the pre-Lapita pottery and the boating technology were all appropriated by Melanesia populations, and they carried on behind the vanguard of Austronesian expansion. No other explanation that I have seen fits all the evidence. And for you tat appropriation is by no means 'subtle'. You envisage wholesale approriation with almost no contact between Melanesians and Austronesians. I find that extremely difficult to accept.

    "You need to invent a second wave-cum-genocide"

    You and your obsession with genocide. It is certainly not necessary to postulate genocide. Merely rapid movement and small founder populations. And the 'second wave' would not post-date the first by any considerable time. THye would have filled up the gaps.

    "You are not interested in reality: only on your pre-fabricated fantasy of irking racist tinges".

    Surely it is you who is the 'racist'. You seem to believe that the 'primitive' Melanesians were somehow not able to progress beyond Tonga/Samoa but the 'superior' Polynesians were able to depart from the Pillipines and cover the huge distance to Polynesia with minimal contact with Melanesia. That sounds to me like some 'Lost Tribe' exodus.

    "Polynesian genetics are all a brutal founder effect, reducing genetic diversity to almost one single maternal lineage and two paterna ones".

    Not one of the links either of us has provided say any such thing. Back and forward movement of people is the common denominator in all the papers. The reason why we have 'almost one single maternal lineage and two paterna ones' is that they were in the vanguard of the movement and other haplogroups are yet to catch up with them. Of course that means we are looking at an 'original' founder effect somewhere near the admiralty Islands or even further west.

    ReplyDelete
  21. What is rubbish is to claim that " B4a1a1a is the ONLY mt-DNA haplogroup that spreads through the whole lapita region", when in many localities of Lapita I its frequency is zero or quite low. From Friedlaender 2007 (supp. materials):

    Extremes at New Britain: 0% in Nakanai (Loso) ant Nata, 55% in Kove.
    Extremes at Boungaville: 0% in Rokotas, 100% in Nagovisi.
    Vanuatu: 17%
    New Caledonia: 26%
    Fiji: 80%

    (Only Lapita I archipelagos mentioned).

    Similarly in ISEA the highest frequency of B4a is never above 11% (except Ambon where it reaches to 23%). Only in some localities within the Lapita I area and then in the Lapita II area (Solomons and Polynesia), B4a is dominant in an uniform way. But then the Lapita II area is massively B4a, very especially Polynesia.

    Hence, even if B4a was present in the early Oceanic expansion (Lapita I), it acquired its dominance among Polynesians (and almost only among them) only because of a founder effect at the root of the Polynesian ethnicity. A secondary but less dramatic founder effect happened in the other Late Lapita area: the Solomons. However there it is not associated to Y-DNA O3 nor C2a, suggesting that it was a different even if loosely related process.

    Which lineages are important instead of B4a in Lapita I zones? P, Q, M28 and M29 (M27 and E also sometimes). All those lineages, except E, are typical Melanesian but if there are founder effects these are not very marked and must be localized, not affecting the whole Lapita I area but each of its archipelagos or islands if anything.

    So each local colonization was a different process to some extent. One of them: the one affecting Fiji first and later also Samoa and Tonga seems to have been starred by the proto-Polynesian group. But all the others show little trace of them if at all.

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    1. Oops Bougainville was not just misspelled but also belongs to Lapita II, not I.

      Delete
  22. "Taiwan is obvioulsy very relevant to the deeper origin of Malayo-Polynesians".

    Maybe but only for that. The main pivotal and genetic role in the expansion of Malayo-Polynesians was in Philippines, not Taiwan. Taiwan is just a distraction you throw around and that does not really matter whatever the angle you look at it.

    "The Melanesians certainly appropriated the Austronesian phenomenon but they didn't invent it".

    Nor did the Filipinos nor the Malays nor the Indonesians... all them are mostly rooted locally in their genetics, as we have discussed elsewhere. With limited genetic influence from outside they became Austronesian in language and identity. Just because they have epicanthic fold and lighter skin tones does not make any difference. It should not.

    "It is certainly not necessary to postulate genocide".

    How come? If, as you claim, first there was a population A (Polynesian-like in everything, notably the lineages) and now there is a population B (Melanesian-like in nearly everything), it means that the population A was exterminated or nearly so. That is a genocide.

    Of course there was no genocide but that's because the population B was the first and only one to arrive (in any significant numbers) to Far Melanesia (before the French pied noirs).

    "You seem to believe that the 'primitive' Melanesians were somehow not able to progress beyond Tonga/Samoa but the 'superior' Polynesians were able to depart from the Pillipines and cover the huge distance to Polynesia with minimal contact with Melanesia".

    I rather imagine the following:

    1. Population A (Y-DNA O3, mtDNA B4a, not too many) arrived from Philippines to the northern coasts/islands of Papua-New Guinea (Trobriand?). They were very influential somehow and many local groups "converted" to their language and customs, at least to some extent.

    2. These "convert" locals, population B (Melanesians), were the main force in the Lapita I phenomenon, settling Vanuatu (B1), Solomon (B2) and Fiji (B3). The B4a we see represent women "imported" from pop. A into pop. B (patrilocality) before the expansion in the normal marriage exchange among neighbors in good terms with a similar ethnic identity.

    3. An admixed group, A1, sailed from PNG (not Philippines!) to Tonga and Samoa (and maybe as far as the Marquesas) within the context of Lapita II. In the same late chronology, another admixed group A2 partly settled the Solomon (which were inhabited before Lapita) causing curious local founder effects.

    The remnants of A may still be in the area or have been almost totally erased by integration with the locals by now. The information I have is not complete enough. They left marks in any case because O3 is found in PNG (in Trobriand also another one of your obsessions: lots of Taiwan-like O1a, as well as lots of B4a, so it may be a locality where the A population settled originally).

    "Not one of the links either of us has provided say any such thing".

    Are you denying that mtDNA B4a1a1 makes up more than 94% of all Polynesian mtDNA? Or that patrilineages O3 and C2a together also constitute almost 100% of the genetic pool in this population. This implies a very strong founder effect already at Samoa and Tonga.

    But not elsewhere.

    ReplyDelete
  23. "Are you denying that mtDNA B4a1a1 makes up more than 94% of all Polynesian mtDNA? Or that patrilineages O3 and C2a together also constitute almost 100% of the genetic pool in this population. This implies a very strong founder effect already at Samoa and Tonga. But not elsewhere".

    Of course not. But 'founder effect is certainly not the only possible explanation. As for supposed founder effect:

    "Hence, even if B4a was present in the early Oceanic expansion (Lapita I), it acquired its dominance among Polynesians (and almost only among them) only because of a founder effect at the root of the Polynesian ethnicity".

    No Maju. Completely wrong. That B4a's expansion into the Pacific did not involve significant 'founder effects' is demonstrated by the fact that although B4a1a1a is the most common B4a haplogroup in Polynesia it is by no means the only one. Members of B4a(xB4a1a1a) made it to central Polynesia and B4a1a1(xB4a1a1a) even made it to the region most likely to exhibit founder effect: New Zealand.

    "3. An admixed group, A1, sailed from PNG (not Philippines!) to Tonga and Samoa (and maybe as far as the Marquesas) within the context of Lapita II".

    No Maju. Completely wrong again. That the major portion of B4a's expansion from the Philippines was relatively recent, and rapid, is demonstrated by the fact that it must have left island SE Asia (well west of Melanesia) shortly after B4a1a1a had coalesced, not before. B4a1a1a2 has been found only on Madagascar and almost certainly coalesced in that region during the last two thousand years at most, and B4a1a1a3 has been found only on Polynesia and almost certainly coalesced in the last two thousand years. Other B4a1a haplogroups are confined to Taiwan and the Philippines along with nearby people such as the Yami and Ivatan. So B4a1a1a must have expanded from the Philippines and reached both geographic extremes shortly before either subclade coalesced.

    "1. Population A (Y-DNA O3, mtDNA B4a, not too many) arrived from Philippines to the northern coasts/islands of Papua-New Guinea (Trobriand?). They were very influential somehow and many local groups 'converted' to their language and customs, at least to some extent".

    So influential were they that B4a1a1 can basically be used as a marker for Austronesian languages in the Pacific. Some Austronesian languages have spread beyong B4a1a1a's distribution of course. Language is not defined by haplogroup.

    "2. These 'convert' locals, population B (Melanesians), were the main force in the Lapita I phenomenon, settling Vanuatu (B1), Solomon (B2) and Fiji (B3). The B4a we see represent women 'imported' from pop. A into pop. B (patrilocality) before the expansion in the normal marriage exchange among neighbors in good terms with a similar ethnic identity".

    Doesn't make sense. So why didn't they take their own women with them? Surely if they had done so B4a would have remained a minority haplogroup and been the first to drift out. Surely B4a is the main component of the eastward movement.

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    1. That is still a founder effect. If we look at the source populations, be it in Philippines or Near Melanesia (or anywhere else you wish to imagine), we do not see anything even close to those frequencies of B4a and we see instead a much greater diversity of haplogroups, both male and female.

      "That the major portion of B4a's expansion from the Philippines was relatively recent, and rapid"...

      Actually, Lapita was not that "rapid": it took many centuries, what, as the examples of modern European colonialism (among many others) show, give room for many particular cases and for many sequential stages. There's simply no reason to demand uniformity, much less when what we see, before the Polynesian founder effect, is the opposite in fact: lots of diversity and local particularities.

      "So why didn't they take their own women with them?"

      They actually did but they were already admixed (patrilocal admixture), so some of them were B4a. And it was mostly slightly admixed Melanesian populations the ones which had incorporated into their cultural baggage the Austronesian languages and the mariner adventurerism (and tech surely) typical of Austronesian culture.

      "Surely if they had done so B4a would have remained a minority haplogroup and been the first to drift out".

      There was never room for much drift as the B-derived populations were always relatively large: they do preserve much of the diversity they surely had upon arrival, not just B4a but also all the other Melanesian lineages with only minor signals of (weak) founder effect caprice.

      Delete
  24. "Which lineages are important instead of B4a in Lapita I zones? P, Q, M28 and M29 (M27 and E also sometimes)".

    Not one of those lineages is present in ALL Lapita regions. P1 is unknown in the Near Oceania region of the Solomon Islands, P2 is unknown in either Santa Cruz or Vanuatu, Q1 is unknown in either Vanuatu or New Caledonia, Q2 is unknown in Bougainville, M28 is unknown on the Admiralty Islands, M29 is unknown in Santa Cruz. M27 is unknown in either Vanuatu or New Caledonia and E made it no further east than Bougainville. Not one of them can be used as a marker for the Lapita expansion, whether lapita I or II. And you even go so far as admitting such: 'but if there are founder effects these are not very marked and must be localized, not affecting the whole Lapita I area but each of its archipelagos or islands if anything'. And certainly none of the above haplogroups speak exclusively austronesian languages.

    "Extremes at New Britain: 0% in Nakanai (Loso) ant Nata, 55% in Kove.
    Extremes at Boungaville: 0% in Rokotas, 100% in Nagovisi".

    That is so irelevant to the question that it is hardly worth replying to. However it is obvious you do not understand the situation. Even in New Britain and Bougainville the Lapita was largely confined to the coast. B4a1a1a is reasonably common in other parts of both islands. And both islands contain people who speak non-Austronesian languages.

    "Only in some localities within the Lapita I area and then in the Lapita II area (Solomons and Polynesia), B4a is dominant in an uniform way".

    Why on earth would you expect it still to be 'dominant in an uniform way'? People come and go, and surely you don't expect that the first haplogroups into Europe would still be 'dominant in an uniform way'.

    "How come? If, as you claim, first there was a population A (Polynesian-like in everything, notably the lineages) and now there is a population B (Melanesian-like in nearly everything), it means that the population A was exterminated or nearly so. That is a genocide".

    Most definitely it does not imply genocide, as I keep trying to point out. Just because some haplogroup is first into a region it does not necessarily remain so. Y-DNA I has certainly not remained dominant in Europe for example. And genocide is exactly what your explanation for the Austronesian expansion requires: selective genocide of haplogroups. This explanation makes no sense at all:

    "So each local colonization was a different process to some extent. One of them: the one affecting Fiji first and later also Samoa and Tonga seems to have been starred by the proto-Polynesian group. But all the others show little trace of them if at all".

    So you're claiming a single migration from Taiwan to Fiji for B4a1a1a, which brought an Austronesian language with it. How on earth do you propose the Melanesian people who had carried Lapita I had been persuaded to adopt Austronesian languages in the first place?

    "A secondary but less dramatic founder effect happened in the other Late Lapita area: the Solomons. However there it is not associated to Y-DNA O3 nor C2a, suggesting that it was a different even if loosely related process".

    Or more likely: didn't happen at all.

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    1. "Not one of those lineages is present in ALL Lapita regions".

      So? They are in general and it all depends on how nit-picky you get. If I get nit-picky I can also claim that B4a is not present in ALL Lapita area samples (some have 0% in fact).

      "P1 is unknown in the Near Oceania region of the Solomon Islands".

      Which incidentally is out of Lapita I. So P1 is strongly associated to Lapita I - check!

      "Q2 is unknown in Bougainville"

      Also out of Lapita I. Hence Q2, which is what Sakiusa inquired about many comments ago, is strongly associated with Lapita I as well - check!

      "M28 is unknown on the Admiralty Islands, M29 is unknown in Santa Cruz".

      Very small specific localities. I gather that therefore M28 and M29 are also strongly associated with Lapita I at least - check!

      "Not one of them can be used as a marker for the Lapita expansion, whether lapita I or II"...

      I actually read the opposite from the very same observations you just made. Some subclades of P, Q, M28 and M29 are strongly associated with Lapita I, and in some cases also with Lapita II or either subregional part of it (Solomon or Polynesia).

      "Just because some haplogroup is first into a region it does not necessarily remain so".

      Replacement as the one you suggest implies genocide. For example B4a people were first to Aotearoa, what you call New Zealand, but now they are minority. And we know that was because of a genocide, even if "unfinished". I'm not sure if the term "genocide" is mainstream or not over there but it's for real and not questionable.

      Slow-drip replacement theories are nonsense (the "infiltrators" are drifted out and never really accumulate, much less in enough numbers for replacement). Of course in some rare cases the original population may die out because of a supervolcano or extreme epidemics (and some external help) but that's essentially the same thing even if it was not intentional.

      "How on earth do you propose the Melanesian people who had carried Lapita I had been persuaded to adopt Austronesian languages in the first place?"

      I don't have answers for everything (I wish!) but the fact is that they did. That was probably before Lapita I, I presume. I can only imagine that some technological (and maybe also cultural?) advantages helped but can't say exactly how.

      "Or more likely: didn't happen at all".

      Then how do you explain the very common B4a in the Solomons precisely? It needs a colonization of some sort and that one was related to Lapita II: a process parallel but distinct from the Polynesian early one.

      Delete
  25. "That is still a founder effect. If we look at the source populations, be it in Philippines or Near Melanesia (or anywhere else you wish to imagine), we do not see anything even close to those frequencies of B4a and we see instead a much greater diversity of haplogroups, both male and female".

    Why on earth would present frequency have anything at all to do with founder effect? Anyway, lets consider for a moment that you are correct. Remember that Remote Oceania was completely uninhabited until the lapita/Austronesians arrived. Andwe are reasonably sure of the order in which the islands were settled. So if your theory is correct we should find that haplogroups in Remote Oceania are a subset of Santa Cruz haplogroups. Vanuatu in fact does have four of the six Santa Cruz haplogroups: B4a1a1a, P1, Q2 and M27. Vanuatu and New Caledonia both lack Santa Cruz haplogroups P4a and Q1. Founder effect or genocide? But Q1 reappears in Fiji so genocide in Vanuatu and New Caledonia seems the more likely explanation in this case. P4a is not present elsewhere in Melanesia but is a mainland New Guinea haplogroup.

    And both Vanuatu and New Caledonia seem somehow to have picked up M29. Perhaps M29 suffered genocide on Santa Cruz. So we're left with just four possible haplogroups that entered Santa Cruz to eventually reach Polynesia: B4a1a1a, obviously, and P1, Q2 and M28. All four of these haplogroups have been found all along the route between Santa Cruz and Fiji. Where is this founder effect you're consistently on about? It has completely dissappeared. No evidence for any sort of founder effect during the movement from Near Oceania to Fiji.

    Furthermore in New Caledonia we find M29, P2 and M27 as well as the four Santa Cruz/Lapita haplogroups. Genocide again? Fiji actually looks to have elements from from both New caledonia in the south and Vanuatu in the north, not just a subset of Santa Cruz haplogroups. The real situation in Remote Oceania is far more complicated than a simle series of founder effects followed by a huge expansion of B4a1a1a.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Why on earth would present frequency have anything at all to do with founder effect?"

      Why else?! If in source population you have, say, lineages A, B, C and D and in destiny population you only or almost only find A, that's because the founders were all carriers of that lineage and that is called "founder effect". Look it up in Wikipedia, Google or wherever you wish.

      "Vanuatu in fact does have four of the six Santa Cruz haplogroups: B4a1a1a, P1, Q2 and M27. Vanuatu and New Caledonia both lack Santa Cruz haplogroups P4a and Q1. Founder effect or genocide?"

      Isn't Santa Cruz part of the Solomons and therefore part of Lapita II, while Vanuatu and Kanaky are of Lapita I? What are you talking about? Why would you imagine that the settlers of Vanuatu or Kanaky (NC) originated in Solomon and not in PNG?

      "But Q1 reappears in Fiji"

      Different founder effect. You are all the time assuming that Fiji was founded FROM Kanaky, for example, but that does not need to be the case, even if Fiji was settled AFTER Kanaky (and even if the founders stopped at Kanaky for some time). It's like assuming that Mexico (or even the USA) was settled (by Europeans or Mestizos) from Cuba and Hispaniola, just because these islands were settled first. In fact most settlers arrived directly or almost directly from Europe.

      Did your ancestors arrive from Australia or Singapore or did they just made it all the way from Ireland or Britain, even if they probably stopped at some of these landmasses on route? The latter, right?

      Same for Oceanic peoples, mutatis mutandi.

      Delete
  26. "Actually, Lapita was not that 'rapid': it took many centuries"

    By 'rapid' I did not mean 'instant'.

    "They actually did but they were already admixed (patrilocal admixture), so some of them were B4a".

    'Some of them were B4a'? How do you possibly explain how that haplogroup came to dominate so much of the region, including the long-occupied Solomon Islands? It doesn't make sense.

    "mostly slightly admixed Melanesian populations"

    Yes: 'slightly admixed'. In fact very slightly admixed.

    "the ones which had incorporated into their cultural baggage the Austronesian languages and the mariner adventurerism (and tech surely) typical of Austronesian culture".

    Yes. In fact fundamentally the same population that had originally brought in 'the Austronesian languages and the mariner adventurerism (and tech surely) typical of Austronesian culture' from outside. Most of the admixture occurred after this population had moved past.

    "There was never room for much drift as the B-derived populations were always relatively large"

    Yes. Once they had arrived from the Philippines they primarily occupied the peviously uninhabited offshore islands, and expanded from those.

    "they do preserve much of the diversity they surely had upon arrival, not just B4a but also all the other Melanesian lineages with only minor signals of (weak) founder effect caprice".

    Now you're beginning to talk sense, except that the 'Melanesian lineages' didn't arrive with them. They were confined to the larger islands, many of which preserve the pre-Austronesian Papuan languages.

    "If I get nit-picky I can also claim that B4a is not present in ALL Lapita area samples (some have 0% in fact)".

    No Lapita area has 0% B4a1a1a. Some regions that were very marginal for the presence of Lapita lack the haplogroup and those regions maintain the pre-existing non-Austronesian languages.

    "Which incidentally is out of Lapita I. So P1 is strongly associated to Lapita I - check!"

    Don't get too carried away here Maju. How much Lapita I was present in the new Guinea mainland where P1 is particularly common?

    "Also out of Lapita I. Hence Q2, which is what Sakiusa inquired about many comments ago, is strongly associated with Lapita I as well - check!"

    I thought you have always maintained that Bougainville was Lapita I. No Q2.

    "I gather that therefore M28 and M29 are also strongly associated with Lapita I at least - check!"

    Primarily from the Bismarks so they were probably very early followers of Lapita I. But as I mentioned above M29 is not found on Santa Cruz so must have suffered genocide there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "'Some of them were B4a'? How do you possibly explain how that haplogroup came to dominate so much of the region, including the long-occupied Solomon Islands?"

      I don't have answers for everything but it seems that the Melanesian populations in close contact with the seed Austronesian population(s) (culturally assimilated: Oceanic speakers) had some sort of techno-cultural advantage.

      In the particular case of the Solomon Is. (Lapita II) there may have been partial genocide or at the very least some partial displacement. I can't say. But whatever the case the contrast between 100% B4a and 0% B4a localities is quite notable.

      I was just watching a fragment of a documentary somewhere in Melanesia and the coast people had to capture a sea turtle yearly and bring it to the land people, two walk journeys away, to exchange for a pig in immemorial custom of peace. They also had the legend that "initially both turtle and pig lived off land but the pig was faster, so the turtle went to the sea". I don't recall where it was but IF you really want to dig in these matters, exploring anthropologically the local customs and legends and not just the genetics may be of interest.

      "In fact very slightly admixed".

      Indeed but not totally non-admixed, as they carried B4a in variable but meaningful apportions.

      "Most of the admixture occurred after this population [the seed Austronesian population] had moved past".

      That's not what the data shows. They seem to have settled locally, maybe in Trobriand and the first wave was an essentially Melanesian matter, even if Oceanic language and with slight matrilineal admixture. Only the second phase included a more admixed population, more closely related probably with the seed one.

      "Once they [the B populations] had arrived from the Philippines..."

      Please re-read my narration: B populations never arrived from anywhere: they are the local Melanesians and their almost non-admixed derivates with the first Oceanic wave (Lapita I). Those who arrived from Philippines, and their admixed descendants of Lapita II, I labeled "A".

      "How much Lapita I was present in the new Guinea mainland where P1 is particularly common?"

      That's not important. P1 is still tightly associated with Lapita, besides of having a pre-Lapita Melanesian origin and distribution. Just like B is also found in East Asia and America...

      "I thought you have always maintained that Bougainville was Lapita I".

      I'd have to check. There's one or two Lapita I settlements in Solomon but in general the islands rather belong to Lapita II and even then only partly so. I'm not too interested in the Solomons: it's you who bring them back to the conversation once and again, even if we know well that they are anomalous and not representative of either Lapita phase.

      "But as I mentioned above M29 is not found on Santa Cruz so must have suffered genocide there".

      Why? That's a founder effect (in negative). I'm not privy of the details (I'm trying to ignore the Solomons in order not to get a headache) but if origin={A,B,C,D} and destination={A,B,C}, then founder effect, even if weaker than if destination={A} exclusively.

      Delete
  27. "Replacement as the one you suggest implies genocide".

    I have not suggested 'replacement' in any region at all. 'Addition' is what I suggest.

    "For example B4a people were first to Aotearoa, what you call New Zealand, but now they are minority. And we know that was because of a genocide, even if 'unfinished'".

    That is nothing like anything that happened in pre-European times. Perhaps small groups on small islands were wiped out, as happened in New Zealand. But to wipe out a whole haplogroup was extremely unlikely.

    "I'm not sure if the term 'genocide' is mainstream or not over there but it's for real and not questionable".

    Used often, but the term 'holocaust' is frowned upon. Seems only one group is allowed to use that term.

    "I don't have answers for everything (I wish!) but the fact is that they did".

    No Maju. The fact is that they didn't.

    "I can only imagine that some technological (and maybe also cultural?) advantages helped but can't say exactly how".

    You're sort of on the right track here. But a language will only be picked up if it is advantageous to the population picking it up. I agree that both technology and language were picked up by Melanesian people but that was only after extensive contact with an incoming population that had brought those elements into the region. And even overshot and largely bypassed that Melanesian population.

    "Then how do you explain the very common B4a in the Solomons precisely? It needs a colonization of some sort and that one was related to Lapita II: a process parallel but distinct from the Polynesian early one".

    That recently-arrived Lapita/Ausronesian population came to predominate in a population that began to be more mobile between the various islands of the Solomons. It seems most likely that most of the Solomon Islands were sparsely inhabited until the arrival of more sea-based economies. Without such exploitation the islands are unable to supoport a large population.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "I have not suggested 'replacement' in any region at all".

      So how come Vanuatu or Fiji have almost no O3/O1a? Addition would not explain the loss of the main Austronesian lineages. Either there was replacement or these lineages arrived in roughly the same apportions as they are found now.

      They are also extremely low in C2a and Vanuatu also in mtDNA B4a. If those were the founder lineages in Far Melanesia, then we should see them now still dominant or very important in numbers. We do not.

      "That is nothing like anything that happened in pre-European times".

      Of course not because there was NO replacement (except probably in parts of the Solomons). But it'd be the case if it was as you claim (which is not).

      "But to wipe out a whole haplogroup was extremely unlikely".

      I'm not talking haplogroups but the ancient populations that they may signal. And you don't need to wipe out 100% to be called "genocide" or the softer "replacement": 99% is genocide, 90% is genocide, 50% is genocide as well.

      "I agree that both technology and language were picked up by Melanesian people but that was only after extensive contact with an incoming population that had brought those elements into the region".

      Centuries are enough for "extensive contact". A lot depends on cultural elements like openness to innovation, hospitality and such. Probably both the seed population A and the host population B (at least the ones who picked the novel cultural elements) were quite open-minded. Trobrianders have a very open culture and marital relations for what I could read.

      "That recently-arrived Lapita/Ausronesian population came to predominate"...

      They could only predominate if they displaced the natives. And that is genocide.

      Delete
  28. "That's not what the data shows".

    That's not what the data shows YOU, because you've already made up your mind what you want to see, and are prepared to ignore as much evidence as necessary to hold onto your belief.

    "Why else?! If in source population you have, say, lineages A, B, C and D and in destiny population you only or almost only find A, that's because the founders were all carriers of that lineage and that is called 'founder effect'".

    You're making a huge, unjustified assumption here. You're assuming there has been no further input of haplogroups after a single expansion, your Garden of Eden syndrome again. You're assuming that the 'source' population contained all the haplogroups later found in Remote Oceania. That is so unlikely to be the case that I'm amazed you're even prepared to consider it probable.

    "B populations never arrived from anywhere: they are the local Melanesians"

    That is complete rubbish and I'm absolutely surprised you claim such. There is no way that B populations are anything other than SE Asian in origin, not Melanesian.

    "it seems that the Melanesian populations in close contact with the seed Austronesian population(s) (culturally assimilated: Oceanic speakers) had some sort of techno-cultural advantage".

    No. It was the 'seed Austronesian population' that had the advantage, which they passed on to the neighbouring Melanesians.

    "Why would you imagine that the settlers of Vanuatu or Kanaky (NC) originated in Solomon and not in PNG?"

    Mainly because the Solomons are much closer. However it seems very likely to me that later movements did carry people from New Guinea and through the Solomons to Vanuatu, but this is later than any Lapita. You mentioned yourself that Y-DNA O3 (now known to be O3a2c(xO3a2c1) looks to have moved along the north New Guinea coast and out to Polynesia after lapita I. Perhaps long after Lapita II even. That would explain the sudden expansion into eastern Polynesia two thousand years ago. But that is long after any Lapita and fits what I've been trying to tell you for ages: O3a is relatively recent in SE Asia.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "That's not[?] what the data shows YOU"...

      The data is the same for all. But I notice that you write a lot and look too little to the facts, often claiming things that are not there - and in general not talking about lineages and such but about what you believe must be the case regardless of any data.

      "You're assuming there has been no further input of haplogroups after a single expansion"...

      I'm not assuming anything other than something that should be obvious: once a land has been populated (very especially under Neolithic conditions), further inputs require more effort and hence you can't have secondary founder effects of the same dimensions as the first one(s). Either the secondary wave comes in force with lots of different people, in which case there's no founder effect worth that name, or the secondary wave comes with very few people, in which case they will be lucky to leave a genetic remnant at all.

      Agreed? You should.

      "You're assuming that the 'source' population contained all the haplogroups later found in Remote Oceania".

      There was only one first colonization and one founder effect leading to at least the main haplogroup composition found in all Polynesia almost equally (main exception is Tonga and is not too different). Maybe the incorporated minor lineages later on (but not too late if they have to travel all the way to Hawaii, as is the case of Q2) by means of intermarriage with other archipelagos but there is no signature of a second wave or anything like that.

      ""B populations never arrived from anywhere: they are the local Melanesians"

      That is complete rubbish"...

      Why? I defined B populations in a comment above. Why would you know better than I what I meant when I described them. You just misunderstood everything... again! And now you dare to say "rubbish" blah-blah.

      I'm tired of your childish attitude of perpetual fight without understanding nor purpose.

      "No. It was the 'seed Austronesian population' that had the advantage"...

      Again that is not what the data says. If they "had the advantage", they did not exploit it as you imagine. They probably were just too few and soon mixed with the natives in greater or lesser degree. That's what the genetic data says in fact, at least to those who dare to look at it upfront and not based on some prejudiced narrative.

      "Mainly because the Solomons are much closer".

      We see no particular genetic correlation between Solomon and Vanuatu nor Kanaky. For example Solomon has no C2(xC2a), while Vanuatu has, Solomon has a lot of B4a but Vanuatu does not: they are very different. Additionally Solomon was almost totally outside of the Lapita I phenomenon, so it could not have been also from the archaeological viewpoint.

      "You mentioned yourself that Y-DNA O3 (now known to be O3a2c(xO3a2c1) looks to have moved along the north New Guinea coast and out to Polynesia after lapita I. Perhaps long after Lapita II even".

      Not after Lapita II: it is too important in places like Tonga, Samoa, whose colonization is at the very beginning of Lapita II and are (especially Samoa) at the origin of the Polynesian phenomenon as such.

      Instead Fiji (settled with Lapita I) has very little O3a2(xO3a2b,O3a2c1), which is what Karafet reported in 2010 to be precise. [O3 for short if you allow, as there's no other O3 involved (that we know) except in Tahiti (allegedly recent Chines but I can't strongly support that claim on my own knowledge)].

      "That would explain the sudden expansion into eastern Polynesia"...

      Eastern Polynesia was colonized from Marquesas, which were colonized from Samoa, which was colonized with Lapita II in parallel to Tonga (which seems not important for further Polynesian expansion). I wrote a whole article on that already.

      Delete
  29. "They seem to have settled locally, maybe in Trobriand and the first wave was an essentially Melanesian matter, even if Oceanic language and with slight matrilineal admixture. Only the second phase included a more admixed population, more closely related probably with the seed one".

    You've got that round the wrong way. The first wave settled mainly in the smaller islands in the Bismark Archipelago and was less admixed. Later waves had become more admixed. That is why the 'Melanesian' haplogroups have such a patchy distribution. They had to settle where they could while the first wave could settle where they liked.

    "In the particular case of the Solomon Is. (Lapita II) there may have been partial genocide or at the very least some partial displacement".

    Why do you feel the need to postulate genocide? Surely the evidence can be explained without resorting to that extreme position.

    "There's one or two Lapita I settlements in Solomon but in general the islands rather belong to Lapita II"

    Yes. They were settled at some time by people moving south from further north as well as by people moving west from Santa Cruz.

    "But whatever the case the contrast between 100% B4a and 0% B4a localities is quite notable".

    And 0% B4a coincides exactly with inland regions that do not speak austronesian languages and were not involved in the Lapita complex. What do you see as the problem?

    "Isn't Santa Cruz part of the Solomons and therefore part of Lapita II"

    Santa Cruz is taoday politically part of the Solomons but it is in Remote Ocenia, not in Near Oceania. One of the papers you linked to in a previous blog (which I haven't been able to find at short notice) claimed that Lapita I had moved rapidly from the Bismark Archipelago to Santa Cruz/Reef islands, and from there south through Remote Oceania to Fiji/Tonga/Samoa. At some Later period Lapita II had moved back into the Southern Solomons from Santa Cruz/Reef Islands.

    "You are all the time assuming that Fiji was founded FROM Kanaky, for example, but that does not need to be the case, even if Fiji was settled AFTER Kanaky (and even if the founders stopped at Kanaky for some time)"

    It was settled only just after Kanaky and is universally considered to have been settled from Kanaky. On the other hand you are assuming it was not settled from Kanaky but settled by some group flying Air Pacific. Anyway it's time you looked at Friedlaender again:

    http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0000248

    Quote:

    "During the mid-to late-Holocene, at least one significant impulse of influence came from Island Southeast Asia that led to the development of the Lapita Cultural Complex in the Bismarck Archipelago, primarily on its small off-shore islands, at ~3,300 YBP [7], [8]. A few hundred years after, people bearing the Lapita Cultural Complex had colonized the islands of the Pacific as far east as Tonga and in effect had become the Polynesians (a useful distinction is Remote Oceania, which refers to the Pacific islands beyond the central Solomons settled at ~3,200 YBP or later, versus Near Oceania, which includes New Guinea and Northern Island Melanesia"

    ReplyDelete
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    1. "The first wave settled mainly in the smaller islands in the Bismark Archipelago and was less admixed".

      Evidence? You argue many things based only on your imagination. Where is the genetic or archaeological evidence. How much have you researched the Trobriand? How do you explain that they have so much Austronesian genetics, including "Taiwanese"(?) O1a, which reached as far as Fiji (but not farther)? Between Philippines and Far Oceania the area of the Eastern tip of New Guinea is the one with the greatest accumulation of lineages like O1a and O3 that can be source for the Oceanic peoples colonization of the Pacific Ocean in general and of Polynesia especially. And in that area, of the sampled locations in Kayser 2006 and Karafet 2010, Trobriand is the most outstanding in that aspect. Maybe there are unsampled islands or localities that are even more strongly related to that ancestral population but, with the data we do have (DATA!!!), Trobriand and the Eastern New Guinea tip is the most suggestive source area.

      I can only insist that you shut up for a while and study the maps in this post: http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com.es/2012/10/the-genetic-and-phenotype-complexity-of.html

      "Why do you feel the need to postulate genocide?"

      If people A leaves in A-land and people B arrives and takes part of A-land, pushing them to marginal zones, that is genocide, even if incomplete. That's what may have happened in Solomon - at least it seems a plausible explanation, as the Solomons were probably inhabited since Paleolithic times. But I don't see that happening elsewhere in the Oceanic area.

      "... by people moving west from Santa Cruz".

      Why do you imagine that Santa Cruz was settled by Oceanic peoples before the rest of the Solomons? Beats me!

      "And 0% B4a coincides exactly with inland regions that do not speak austronesian languages"...

      What I can read in Wikipedia on the matter of languages in Bougainville is not fully consistent with what you claim - Austronesian languages (mostly Halia) would be spoken almost only in the Northern tip, while non-Austronesian ones (Nasioi, Korokoro Motuna and Telei with more than 20% of speakers each) appear to occupy most of the rest of the island.

      "... and were not involved in the Lapita complex. What do you see as the problem?"

      I don't recall by now which was "the problem". Your way of debating is not helpful to my clarity of mind.

      "One of the papers you linked to in a previous blog (which I haven't been able to find at short notice) claimed that Lapita I had moved rapidly from the Bismark Archipelago to Santa Cruz/Reef islands, and from there south through Remote Oceania to Fiji/Tonga/Samoa".

      I have no memory of anything like that, sorry.

      "[Fiji] was settled only just after Kanaky and is universally considered to have been settled from Kanaky".

      That of "universally considered" means to me useless unsupported claims by Terry and maybe someone whom he read and may have written in pre-genetic times, in the depths of the 20th century... so long ago that it doesn't matter anymore.

      No data, no evidence, no nothing. Junk blah-blah again!

      "Quote"...

      Not sure what the quote says to you but for me it is totally meaningless.

      Delete
  30. "But I notice that you write a lot and look too little to the facts, often claiming things that are not there"

    I can see I'm wasting my time here. But you wrote this:

    "Solomon has a lot of B4a but Vanuatu does not: they are very different".

    Try looking at the facts.

    "once a land has been populated (very especially under Neolithic conditions), further inputs require more effort and hence you can't have secondary founder effects of the same dimensions as the first one(s). Either the secondary wave comes in force with lots of different people, in which case there's no founder effect worth that name"

    Which seems to have been the case in Remote Oceania.

    ReplyDelete
  31. "That's what the genetic data says in fact, at least to those who dare to look at it upfront and not based on some prejudiced narrative".

    Obviously only to you. You need to read this 2009 paper again so you can understand the movement into the Pacific:

    http://massey.genomicus.com/publications/Ricaut_2010_JArchaeolSci_v37_p1161.pdf

    "In addition, the ancient and modern Solomon haplogroup distribution (e.g. M27 haplogroup) suggests, in agreement with some archaeological and
    linguistic models, that Early Lapita populations expanding out of the Bismarck Archipelago had little or no contact with indigenous non-Austronesian populations in Bougainville and the Solomon Islands. This
    finding indicates smaller scale analyses reveal a more complex reality of genetic admixture in some parts of Oceania than is often assumed in current debates".

    "In general the genetic ancestry of populations in Melanesia and Polynesia can be traced to the initial Pleistocene era settlement of Papua New Guinea and offshore islands some 40,000 years ago (BP), and subsequent admixture with Southeast Asians in the mid-Holocene. The latter process is thought to be associated with the rapid eastward spread of the Austronesian (AN) language family and a Neolithic economy, culminating in human expansion
    into Remote Oceania after 3200 BP"

    "The archaeological distribution of Lapita sites is generally
    discontinuous, occurring on some offshore islands and coastal
    locations in the Bismarck Archipelago but not others, and being
    absent along the north coast of New Guinea (Lilley, 2008). The
    present-day distribution of Austronesian languages there,
    happened much later in the post-Lapita period, with islands such
    as Karkar having a complex linguistic and genetic stratigraphy
    (Ross, 1988; Ricaut et al., 2008). The earliest Lapita settlements
    outside the Bismarcks are in the Reefs-Santa Cruz islands at
    3200 BP (Green, 2003), perhaps suggesting that the initial Lapita
    expansion bypassed the entire main Solomons chain where there
    are no Early Lapita sites (i.e. 3400–2800 BP) (Sheppard andWalter,
    2006). Recent linguistic analyses of the Reefs-Santa Cruz
    languages indicate that they derive from an early branch of the
    Oceanic subgroup whose proximal homeland is the Bismarck
    Archipelago, in agreement with the archaeological evidence of
    a ‘leapfrog’ colonisation (Ross and Næss, 2007; Næss and Boerger,
    2008). The Austronesian languages of the main Solomons belong
    to a later branch of the Oceanic subgroup (Ross, 1989), perhaps
    having arrived 2800–2600 BP when we first begin to see Late
    Lapita sites in the archaeological records of Buka, the Western
    Solomons, and Santa Ana"

    "The issue of post-settlement interaction and exchange in Melanesia
    is often completely ignored in genetic reconstructions. This
    is surprising since Melanesia is renowned for its numerous
    exchange networks, fluid social organisation, and mobile populations".

    "The Lapita cultural complex developed in the Bismarck Archipelago
    3450–3350 BP and led to the settlement of the Reefs-Santa Cruz,
    Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa by Austronesian
    speakers 3200–2800 BP (Spriggs, 1997; Specht, 2007). Lapita sites
    in the Solomon Islands are anomalous within this trajectory, being
    of very low concentration and dating exclusively to the Late Lapita
    period, post 2800 BP"

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Fair enough. It says that the Santa Cruz islands were settled early on with Lapita I and that their language is an early divergent branch of Oceanic.

      But it does not say that Santa Cruz was that the route the navigators took to reach Vanuatu, Fiji, Polynesia or even the rest of the Solomons. Instead the description is rather that of a dead end. For example: "The Austronesian languages of the main Solomons belong to a later branch of the Oceanic subgroup"..., i.e. not the Santa Cruz one nor anything related.

      "The issue of post-settlement interaction and exchange in Melanesia
      is often completely ignored in genetic reconstructions"...

      Not completely ignored but sidelined because of the complexity that the initial founder effects alone, which in almost every single case must be the main source of each local population, have on their own. If there was some minor exchange or some exceptional local resettling is of very lesser importance in the large picture, which is the main focus.

      Exchange networks may have been extensive but not absolutely extensive and not implying important resettlements in most cases. Once an island or archipelago was colonized only change in the details happened - unless genocide can be claimed with some support (what is not the case in almost every case). People married locally within the island or archipelago and did not migrate so much, except to those new found virgin islands beyond the horizon.

      For example Polynesians reached South America for sure, but they had zero genetic impact there. Their chickens on the other hand...

      Delete
  32. It is apparent that you believe humans expanded instantly through Remote Oceania and filled all the individual islands up instantly. That is not how things happen. I agree that humans moved 'rapidly (but not 'instantly') through the islands. They exploited the most easily accessible resources first, in many cases extinguishing them. Then they moved on to the next island group, repeating the process. Those coming behind had to make do with less but they arrived in islands that were still relatively sparsely inhabited.

    "Evidence? You argue many things based only on your imagination".

    Maju, why don't you actually read the links you provide? Every one of them says the Lapita was largely confined to the offshore islands, not the main islands of New Britain, New Ireland, Buka and Bougainville. It is possible that it dominated Manus reasonably quickly but even here is more notable on the smaller islands nearby. But here is a new link more relevant to problems you bring up later:

    http://epress.anu.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ch0525.pdf

    Quote:

    "Lapita site locations are predominantly coastal, with most being beach locations"

    Satisfied? I presume not!

    "Why do you imagine that Santa Cruz was settled by Oceanic peoples before the rest of the Solomons? Beats me!"

    You seem not yet to understand anything about the Pacific in spite of your several posts on the matter. The Ricaut paper you supposedly read before putting up one of your posts claims that to be the case. But of course the Solomon Islands (apart from Santa Cruz) had been populated long before the 'Oceanic peoples' began their expansion.

    "If people A leaves in A-land and people B arrives and takes part of A-land, pushing them to marginal zones, that is genocide, even if incomplete. That's what may have happened in Solomon - at least it seems a plausible explanation, as the Solomons were probably inhabited since Paleolithic times".

    You are intent on avoiding facing the fact that the Solomon Islands were SPARSELY INHABITED before the Austronesian-speaking people arrived. And those Paleolithic inhabitants certainly DID NOT speak Austronesian languages.

    "For example Polynesians reached South America for sure, but they had zero genetic impact there".

    You may not know it but people had already been living in America for thousands of years before the Polynesians arrived, and had filled it up.

    ReplyDelete
  33. "How much have you researched the Trobriand?"

    I have over many years. Funnily enough they were settled quite late. From the above link concerning pottery expansion along the south and east coasts of mainland New Guinea:

    "Equally, on the south coast it would be foolish to believe these colonists encountered empty landscapes. Within the Bismarck Archipelago, Summerhayes (in press a) has argued that the population levels for the existing mobile hunting and gathering communities was low and the absence of evidence for earlier hunters on the Papuan coast suggests that the same is true there. In neither case has much attention been paid to the probable interactions
    between incumbents and new arrivals in these situations (e.g. Kirch 2000:93)".

    So here we see a region sparsely settled by hunter-gatherers where the Lapita-derived people could come to form a majority. Further out into the Pacific where the Lapita people were the original inhabitants the later-arriving hunter-gatherers from the larger islands could come to dominate. And I'm sure you will find something interesting in this one:

    http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/docs/Memoirs/mem_048/manandahalf067.pdf

    Quote:

    "While mainland New Guinea and its nearby islands have been occupied for at least 40,000 years as yet little evidence has been found on the south Papuan Coast, or in the Massim (Figure 1), which dates earlier than 2000 years ago".

    The offshore islands show even less evidence for early human presence. The generally-accepted theory is that the islands were too small, and had too few resources, to support any continuous population.

    ReplyDelete
  34. "Between Philippines and Far Oceania the area of the Eastern tip of New Guinea is the one with the greatest accumulation of lineages like O1a and O3 that can be source for the Oceanic peoples colonization of the Pacific Ocean in general and of Polynesia especially".

    The fact that O1a and O3 don't reach Eastern Polynesia supports the idea that those two lineages post-date the first Lapita colonization of the Pacific, and you can see from these links that Eastern New Guinea appears to have been settled some time after people had already been able to moved into Remote Oceania.

    "But it does not say that Santa Cruz was that the route the navigators took to reach Vanuatu, Fiji, Polynesia or even the rest of the Solomons. Instead the description is rather that of a dead end. For example: 'The Austronesian languages of the main Solomons belong to a later branch of the Oceanic subgroup'..., i.e. not the Santa Cruz one nor anything related".

    I agreed some days ago that the evidence suggested Fiji had been settled from both the southern and northern ends of the Santa Cruz/New Caledonia island chain. I repeat: Q1 is found in Santa Cruz and Fiji but not further south through the SC/NC chain.

    "So how come Vanuatu or Fiji have almost no O3/O1a?"

    We both know that Y-DNA is less indicative of ancestry that is mt-DNA, and is relatively easily replaced. I was referring specifically to mt-DNA. But Fiji does have O3a, and you've already suggested that O3a in Polynesia is a result of Chinese labourers brought in historically. Far more Chinese were taken into Fiji. O3a has been recorded in the New Guinea coast and the islands to the southeast and as I understand things Vanuatu has not been closely examined for Y-DNA so we cannot draw conclusions on that matter yet. O3a's absence in the Admiralty Islands is harder to explain but O1a is very much present there and is found in much the same pattern as O3a except it becomes quite rare by Fiji.

    "They are also extremely low in C2a and Vanuatu also in mtDNA B4a".

    Where on earth do you get that idea from? It is certainly inconsistent with any information I have been able to find. Ebizur some time back claimed 17-20% C2* in Vanuatu including Maewo. If you're going to argue from that an absence of C2a you should surely simply accept that C2a coalesced somewhere in Vanuatu.

    "If those were the founder lineages in Far Melanesia, then we should see them now still dominant or very important in numbers".

    I sincerely hope you can now understand why they would not necessarily now dominate, because I am not going to waste any more time on you. Carry on with your strange beliefs, but don't expect to be taken seriously.

    ReplyDelete
  35. I'm truly bored of this endless discussion for the Nth time, so this will be my last comment:

    ... "they arrived in islands that were still relatively sparsely inhabited".

    NO! In good conditions, as those in virgin lands, expansion is exponential: a mere 100 founders having five surviving children each become 12,500 in the third generation and 62,500 in the fourth generation (one century); if nothing impedes it, they'd be some eight million in the seventh generation (two centuries). Even the largest island would be "full" in that time.

    There's no reason to expect sparse inhabitation nor there is any evidence for any "second wave" either.

    "Lapita site locations are predominantly coastal"...

    In SE Papua New Guinea, which is what the paper deals about.

    "Funnily enough they were settled quite late".

    Can you provide a clear source? Also by "quite late", do you mean late in relation to Near Melanesia (allowing for a proto-Lapita founder effect that seems obvious in the genetic aspect) of late in relation with Lapita? I presume that the former.

    "So here we see a region sparsely settled by hunter-gatherers"...

    No hunter-gatherers, please! Papuan Neolithic is one of the oldest on Earth even if it is debated whether it is a local development or product if Asian influences, more obvious in the Malay Archipelago. The very paper you linked to discusses pre-Lapita pottery and a "sketchy" pre-Pottery period 1.

    "The offshore islands show even less evidence for early human presence. The generally-accepted theory is that the islands were too small, and had too few resources, to support any continuous population".

    Those are the small islands of the Louisiade Archipelago. Please stop being tendentious and mixing apples with, I presume, oranges. I say "I presume" because at this point it's very difficult to figure out what you mean at all.

    "The fact that O1a and O3 don't reach Eastern Polynesia"...

    O3 does.

    "We both know that Y-DNA is less indicative of ancestry that is mt-DNA".

    Cheat!

    MtDNA normally (not always) is more informative of overall ancestry because most Y-DNA may well have arrived with the latest patriarchal wave, who typically incorporate local females. BUT that's not always the case: just a rule of thumb.

    In any case Y-DNA almost always defines the ethnos, because of widespread patrilocality. Vanuatu, Kanaky or Fiji have very little O because they were settled primarily by what we call Melanesians (of Oceanic languages).

    "Where on earth do you get that idea from?"

    From the maps and ref. papers at my previous entry on the matter: http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com.es/2012/10/the-genetic-and-phenotype-complexity-of.html

    You should study those maps yourself because most of the time you seem unaware of what they tell.

    "If you're going to argue from that an absence of C2a you should surely simply accept that C2a coalesced somewhere in Vanuatu".

    Nonsense! C2a is NOT found in Vanuatu but it is rather common, among other places, in Highland New Guinea (as I told you several times before), what cannot be explained by Austronesian influences (and does not require them: C2 in general is pre-Austronesian, Melanesian!) C2a is found instead in the SE tip of New Guinea (among other places). Both Polynesian Y-DNA lineages (C2a and O3) seem to have "jumped" from Near Melanesia to Polynesia, mostly skipping Far Melanesia.

    ReplyDelete
  36. "You should study those maps yourself because most of the time you seem unaware of what they tell [regarding absence of C2 in Vanuatu]".

    You must be a little blind. The Karafet map clearly shows a sunbstantial C2 presence in Vanuatu that can have reached there no earlier than 3000 years ago. What's more the same map shows very little C2 or C2a at all in New Guinea. Surely you are aware of the fact that C2 and C2a are almost exclusively confined to the 'Bird's Head' region of Irian Jaya, not the whole of New Guinea. When it actually arrived in the Bird's Head from Southern Walacea is anyone's guess, but mine would be shortly before it reached Vanuatu.

    "NO! In good conditions, as those in virgin lands, expansion is exponential: a mere 100 founders having five surviving children each become 12,500 in the third generation"

    Do you really believe that all the haplogroups in Remote Oceania arrived in one mass migration? Surely you don't believe that all European haplogroups arrived in one mass migration, so why do you insist such to be the case in Remote Oceania? It doesn't make sense.

    "Even the largest island would be 'full' in that time".

    Evidently not. A book published in 1984 claims for Island Melanesia (Solomon Islands basically), a region populated for a very long time before any Lapita people reached it:

    "The early hunter-gatherers of new Guinea probably did not penetrate much beyond New Britain, New Ireland, and Bougainville, at least not for any great length of time. First, they did not have the marine technology for a ready means of exploration. Second, and perhaps more important, these mainly pre-agricultural people would have been unable to survive for very long in Southern Melanesia, which is very poor in edible flora and fauna compared with New Guinea and Ausralia".

    Now I realise you will say this is an old book, but most of the links you have provided claim as much, if they consider the idea at all. In fact it is still universally accepted, except by you. When we care to look at the mt-DNA in the region we find not one Near or Remote Oceania haplogroup that could have coalesced any further east than Bougainville. This supports the lack of any pre-Austronesian presence in the Solomons. The Melanesian haplogroups seem to have each coalesced in separate regions: P3b and Q1 in Western New Guinea, P1, Q3 and P4a in Central New Guinea, Q2 in the Admiralty Islands, P2 in Eastern New Guinea, M28 and M29 in the Bismark Archipelago, M27 in Bougainville. No haplogroup can be shown to have coalesced further into Near Oceania let alone Remote Oceania. The above haplogroups have variously moved into Remote Oceania but it is difficult to make a convincing case for them all to have done so together.

    "No hunter-gatherers, please! Papuan Neolithic is one of the oldest on Earth even if it is debated whether it is a local development or product if Asian influences"

    Evidently their 'Neolithic' was insufficient to allow prolonged survival on the smaller islands of the Solomons (see above).

    "In SE Papua New Guinea, which is what the paper deals about [Lapita site locations are predominantly coastal]".

    And everywhere else, as you'd find if you'd bothered to check.

    ReplyDelete
  37. I forgot a very relevant point:

    "but it [C2a] is rather common, among other places, in Highland New Guinea (as I told you several times before), what cannot be explained by Austronesian influences (and does not require them: C2 in general is pre-Austronesian, Melanesian!)"

    As I pointed out: in the Bird's Head. And guess the region of New Guinea where Austronesian languages are most commonly spoken ...

    "Can you provide a clear source? Also by 'quite late', do you mean late in relation to Near Melanesia [islands SE of New Guinea]"

    Why didn't you bother reading the links I provided? About two thousand years ago according to both papers.

    From:

    http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/docs/Memoirs/mem_048/manandahalf067.pdf

    "While mainland New Guinea and its nearby islands have been occupied for at least 40,000 years as yet little evidence has been found on the south Papuan Coast, or in the Massim (Figure 1), which dates earlier than 2000 years ago".

    And from:

    http://epress.anu.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ch0525.pdf

    "Sites older than 2,000 years are few along the south Papuan and Papuan Gulf coasts".

    So there you have it.

    ReplyDelete
  38. You are such a manipulator!

    "The Karafet map clearly shows a sunbstantial C2 presence in Vanuatu"...

    Precisely: C2(xC2a), so NOT C2a, and what did I say? C2? Nooo! C2a!

    "A book published in 1984 claims"...

    Blah-blah. They are using the terminology "hunter-gatherers", when we all know that upon the arrival of Austronesians most Papuans were agriculturalists (since c. 10,000 BP).

    It's not just a subjective claim but also a clearly wrong one.

    "... in the Bird's Head."

    No! In the Highlands! Look at the maps again!

    "Why didn't you bother reading the links I provided?"

    I did. Just that they are irrelevant. No mention of Trobriand for example, other than two references in the bibliography.

    Fucking manipulator and cheater that you are!

    "... as yet little evidence has been found on the south Papuan Coast, or in the Massim (Figure 1), which dates earlier than 2000 years ago".

    First, not Trobriand. Second, lack of evidence is not evidence of lack. Or do you really believe that people would disdain a prime coastal ecological niche?

    "Sites older than 2,000 years are few along the south Papuan and Papuan Gulf coasts".

    Third: they do not mention "no evidence" but "little" and "few" of it.

    So someone lived there for sure.

    Whatever the case, my whole point is Trobriand and the Northern areas of PNG. Also, if PNG would have been even half-available, the Austronesians would have occupied it. They did not.

    ReplyDelete
  39. "Cheat!"

    That's what you wrote about me the other day. Now I see it's your turn to cheat and manipulate the data:

    "C2(xC2a), so NOT C2a, and what did I say? C2? Nooo! C2a!"

    You're squirming out of C2 being Austronesian. How do you justify leaving C2(xC2a) out of consideration when it was obviously a very important element in the Lapita/Austronesian expansion?

    "No! In the Highlands! Look at the maps again! [re. C2a]"

    Here we have yet another example of your not reading your own links. Have a re-read of this from your 'Oceanic' post, specifically on the Trans-New Guinea phylum but relevant to the subject of this post:

    http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/11/2546.long

    Quote:

    "C-M208 is of Melanesian origin (Kayser et al. 2006) but showed low frequency everywhere in New Guinea (average 6.8%), except in 2 related groups from the SWNG highlands (Kayser et al. 2003). Given the low sample size for the whole island, or its involvement in a bottleneck with subsequent expansion as in the Dani/Lani from SWNG (Kayser et al. 2003, 2006), it is difficult to infer its more specific geographic origin as well as its coalescent time".

    So C2a is confined to two 'related groups', which may have come recently from the coast. Hardly an indication of long-establishment in the New Guinea highlands.

    "I did. Just that they are irrelevant. No mention of Trobriand for example"

    The above link does mention the Trobriand Islands:

    Quote:

    "However, other Austronesian-speaking groups from mainland PNG and surrounding islands show a much higher frequency of O-M119 and O-M122 Y-chromosomes, for example, Bereina from the south coast of PNG (23%) or the Trobriand Islanders east of mainland PNG (38%) (Kayser et al. 2006)"

    And:

    "Also, the Tolai from New Britain, the Trobriand Islanders, and the group from PNG Bereina—all Austronesian speakers—are somewhat outside the cline most likely due to their frequencies of Austronesian-associated O-M119 and/or O-M122".

    So what else do you wish to know about the Trobriand Islands?

    "First, not Trobriand. Second, lack of evidence is not evidence of lack. Or do you really believe that people would disdain a prime coastal ecological niche?"

    Southeast New Guinea is near enough to the Trobriand Islands so your distinction is not valid. If people lived on the Trobriand Islands we would expect to find evidence of theire presence on the nearby mainland. Both papers mention the lack of evidence in spite of efforts to find such evidence of occupation, so it is very likely to be valid. A 'prime coastal ecological niche' is unlikely to be much use to a people not adapted to utilizing it. To assume that the original New Guinea population exploited coastal resources is to make unjustified assumpltions.

    "Blah-blah. They are using the terminology 'hunter-gatherers', when we all know that upon the arrival of Austronesians most Papuans were agriculturalists (since c. 10,000 BP)".

    Make up your mind. Agriculturists or fishermen?

    "if PNG would have been even half-available, the Austronesians would have occupied it. They did not".

    You seem to be still labouring under some misconception about Oceanic populations. New Guinea was not 'even half-available'. It was well and truly populated. It was the offshore islands that were under-populated, and Austronesians quickly occupied them.

    "my whole point is Trobriand and the Northern areas of PNG".

    The Trobriand islands are different from the northern areas of New Guinea. The islands were apparently too small to maintain a permanent population until the Austronesians, with their diverse economy, arrived.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Some further information for your delight. I provided this link in your Oceanic post, but I doubt you read it:

    http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/09/03/molbev.msr186.full

    Quote:

    "Fijians culturally and phenotypically have more in common with Near Oceanian groups than do other Remote Oceanian groups (Spriggs 1997), which may be explained by additional contact between Near Oceania and Fiji that did not extend further into Remote Oceania (Wollstein et al. 2010)".

    "Although most groups in the Solomons speak Austronesian languages, there are a few Papuan-speaking groups, who thus represent the most eastward extension of Papuan languages. It is generally considered that the few Papuan-speaking groups in the Solomons are descended from an early migration there (Dunn et al. 2002, 2005), although it is also possible that some Papuan-speaking groups migrated to the Solomons at the same time as Austronesian speakers. In addition, some groups in the Solomons are closely related culturally and linguistically to Polynesians, and these 'Polynesian Outliers' thus reflect recent back migration from Polynesia (Kirch 1984; Green 1995)".

    I've been forgetting the Polynesian outliers. They represent a problem for your belief. In theory they should not have been able to become established.

    "Ceramics are known only from the northern and western main Solomons; they are largely absent from the central/southeast main Solomons archaeological record (Sheppard and Walter 2006). This situation is mirrored by a sharp linguistic division, known as the Tryon–Hackman line, that divides all Austronesian languages spoken on Isabel (except Bughotu, on the easternmost tip) and all islands to the north and west (including Bougainville) from those spoken on Guadalcanal and all islands to the south and east (Tryon and Hackman 1983; Ross 1989)".

    "Moreover, it has been suggested that the Tryon–Hackman line may reflect a migration of people from the Santa Cruz/Reef Islands back to the eastern and central Solomons (Sheppard and Walter 2006)"

    Surely that implies that the 'eastern and central Solomons' were not as heavily populated as were the Bismarks and Bougainville.

    "5.The Tryon–Hackman line, which marks an important division among Oceanic languages, does not find any correspondence in the genetic structure of Solomon groups".

    But:

    "6.The major source of Solomon NRY and mtDNA types is the Bismarcks, in good agreement with linguistic and archaeological evidence as well as expectations based on previous genetic evidence".

    So central/southeast Solomons was settled by people from the Bismark Archipelago suggesting a not-very-ancient human presence east of Bougainville.

    ReplyDelete
  41. C2 is not "Austronesio": it does not come from Taiwan nor Philippines nor Borneo: it is a Melanesian lineage most important in Wallacea but also in New Guinea and the smaller islands NE of it. C2(xC2a) only appears to be important in the context of Lapita in Vanuatu.

    C2a is unknown in Wallacea and instead variably found in New Guinea, where it originates beyond reasonable doubt (exactly the same as B4a1a1a originated in Philippines and not Taiwan).

    "C-M208 is of Melanesian origin (Kayser et al. 2006) but showed low frequency everywhere in New Guinea (average 6.8%)"...

    That is not so "low". It's clearly much higher than B4a in Philippines.

    "... except in 2 related groups from the SWNG highlands"...

    My point exactly.

    "So C2a is confined to two 'related groups', which may have come recently from the coast. Hardly an indication of long-establishment in the New Guinea highlands".

    I will respond to this waste of virtual ink with the last part of the very sentence you quote:

    "Given the low sample size for the whole island, or its involvement in a bottleneck with subsequent expansion as in the Dani/Lani from SWNG (Kayser et al. 2003, 2006), it is difficult to infer its more specific geographic origin as well as its coalescent time".

    It does not really matter much how the major human lineage C2 arrived to New Guinea, what is certian beyond doubt is that it was restricted to beyond Wallace Line, i.e. Melanesia and Australia (but in this case only Melanesia AFAIK) since the colonization of the region some 50 or 60 Ka ago.

    C2a is a local Papuan variant that nobody would have even noticed would not be so strongly involved in the Polynesian phenomenon. There must be dozens like that one within C2. But this one was "lucky" and became part of a peculiar expansion on one of the largest (overall) and at the same time smaller (in actual land size) continental-sized regions of Earth: the Pacific Ocean. But its origins are clearly Melanesian, Papuan specifically.

    "The above link does mention the Trobriand Islands"....

    Lucky us. It is in fact the source of all what I said about them.

    "So what else do you wish to know about the Trobriand Islands?"

    Why on Earth do you imagine them as not being almost direct descendants of the early "seed population" of Austronesian language and genetics arrived from Philippines prior to Lapita and the Oceanic scatter? They totally look like a very well preserved "refuge" population. They are of course mixed, almost 50-50 with local Melanesian genetics but they are still the best preserved example of the "seed" group in the area.


    "If people lived on the Trobriand Islands we would expect to find evidence of theire presence on the nearby mainland".

    We do, even if thin.

    Whatever the I am not even suggesting that Trobriand were inhabited long before to Lapita, I'm actually suggesting the opposite: that they are one of those uninhabited small islands that you so often argue for, that early Austronesians, with their mariner economy, made their own more easily. That's why we see so much Austronesian-specific genetics among modern Trobrianders.

    "To assume that the original New Guinea population exploited coastal resources is to make unjustified assumpltions".

    Please! They boated across Wallace Line and yet they had to be excluded of the richest ecosystems on Earth! Why? Because Terry says so...

    "Make up your mind. Agriculturists or fishermen?"

    Both. There's no contradiction, although fishing is surely of older roots.

    What a stupid annoying, insulting, question!

    ...

    ReplyDelete
  42. ...

    "I've been forgetting the Polynesian outliers [in Solomon]. They represent a problem for your belief. In theory they should not have been able to become established".

    Like the use of Polynesian language in Fiji, it does not seem related to genetics, so there was no actual back-migration in numbers. Why these populations speak Polynesian instead of some other Oceanic language? I can't answer to that but it is not for mere back-migration reasons, at least not in any levels that would change the genetic landscape.

    "Moreover, it has been suggested that the Tryon–Hackman line may reflect a migration of people from the Santa Cruz/Reef Islands"...

    Weren't these speakers of a long-diverged distinct Oceanic language? Either this or that but hardly both.

    "So central/southeast Solomons was settled by people from the Bismark Archipelago suggesting a not-very-ancient human presence east of Bougainville".

    I'm not the one diving once and again into the peculiar complexity of Solomon Islands, which are only a peripheral issue in the overall Oceanic expansion debate. But, in any case, a Bismarck → Solomon migration could have happened at any time before the Austronesians... unless you are talking specifically of Austronesian markers recently sourced from Asia of the B4a kind.

    An Austronesian origin of some of the Solomonians in Bismark, on the other hand would be contradictory with the other ideas you have been throwing around about the colonization of the Solomons, namely: Santa Cruz and Polynesia.

    I'd ask you what is your actual theory but, honestly, I do not care.

    ReplyDelete
  43. You will certainly find this paper informative (if you can bring yourself to read it):

    http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/25/7/1362.full.pdf

    Note that K-P79 is now K3, K-P117 is now M3, K-M254 is now S1, K-M226 is now S1d and M-P34 is now M1a. The authors do seem to be obsessed with 'sex-biased genetic admixture' as explanation for discrepancies in the evidence where several relatively independent population movements would achieve the same effect. This leads to the problem they see:

    "However, there is 1 important difference: the frequencies of Melanesian NRY and mtDNA haplogroups are both significantly higher in the Admiralty Islands than in Polynesia"

    Surely if Melanesian Y-DNA accompanied by some Melanesian mt-DNA has moved into the region later that is exactly the result we would see. They do suggest something similar in fact, but hedge their bets. Another problem they have difficulty explaining is:

    "Moreover, in the non-Austronesian groups of these regions, the frequency
    of Asian mtDNA haplogroups (42.1%) was significantly higher than that of Asian NRY haplogroups (just 1.7%, P , 0.05). This may reflect a strong influence of patrilocality in the non-Austronesian groups of Melanesia on their admixture with the Austronesians, which would favor admixture
    with Austronesian women rather than Austronesian men".

    That problem would probably dissappear if they considered C2 to be SE Asia rather than Melanesian of course. Which leads to this:

    "Although, as argued above, the initial genetic admixture between those Austronesians and non-Austronesians that gave rise to the people who further migrated eastward across the Pacific most likely happened in northern Island
    Melanesia, Austronesians probably arrived earlier in the Bird’s Head region of northwestern New Guinea (NWNG), as indicated by linguistic data (Lynch et al. 2002). However, this earlier Austronesian arrival in NWNG seems to have
    had only a small genetic impact, though its linguistic impact was much greater (Mona et al. 2007)".

    Now, if they had been prepared to accept that C2 was part of that early austronesian arrival there they would see a much lesser discrepancy between linguistic and genetic data. However they do add:

    "In particular, NRY haplogroup C-M38 has a high frequency and an assumed origin in the Bird’s Head region of NWNG (Mona et al. 2007). C-M38 also is more frequent in Austronesian groups (and Fijians) than in non-Austronesian groups of northern Island Melanesia and eastern mainland New Guinea"

    ReplyDelete
  44. "C2 is not 'Austronesio': it does not come from Taiwan nor Philippines nor Borneo: it is a Melanesian lineage most important in Wallacea but also in New Guinea and the smaller islands NE of it".

    In New Guinea C2 is entirely confined to the Bird's Head (and very nearby) and in patches along the North Coast. In no way can it be considered a 'New Guinea' haplogroup. The time of its arrival in New Guinea is anybody's guess but its spread beyond the Bird's Head is unlikely to have been much before it hitched up with mt-DNA B4a. On 'the smaller islands NE of it' its arrival is almost certainly coincident with the arrival of B4a. B4a1a1a is much more closely tied to Austronesian-speaking people in the Pacific than is any Y-DNA haplogroup.

    "does not come from Taiwan nor Philippines nor Borneo"

    I'm sure no-one has ever claimed such. However according to Ebizur C2a has been found in Borneo. The reference he gave was Hurles et al. (2005). Southern Borneo: (Banjarmasin) 22.7% and Northern Borneo (Kota Kinabalu) 15.4%. Its distribution in Indonesia certainly overlaps that of B4a in places.

    "Given the low sample size for the whole island, or its involvement in a bottleneck with subsequent expansion as in the Dani/Lani from SWNG (Kayser et al. 2003, 2006), it is difficult to infer its more specific geographic origin as well as its coalescent time".

    That 'low sample size' has been considerably increased since then and no C2a has been found in the highlands as far as I'm aware. And the difficulty the author has with the 'coalescent time' is because, like you, they would like to believe it originated in new Guinea. That is extremely unlikely. According to Ebizur again C2a originated around four and a half thousand years ago somewhere near the Admiralty Islands. Surely you cannot make the giant leap from the presence of C2a in two closely related groups of recent headhunters up the only major river system in Irian Jaya to an assumption that C2a originated in New Guinea. Its presence there is presumably a product of your favourite: founder effect.

    "It does not really matter much how the major human lineage C2 arrived to New Guinea, what is certian beyond doubt is that it was restricted to beyond Wallace Line, i.e. Melanesia and Australia (but in this case only Melanesia AFAIK) since the colonization of the region some 50 or 60 Ka ago".

    You base that statement on absolutely no evidence. On the contrary the evidence such as it is shows C2 was restricted to the islands on Southern Wallacea for thousands of years before it managed to reach Melanesia, or even the Bird's Head.

    "Why on Earth do you imagine them as not being almost direct descendants of the early 'seed population' of Austronesian language and genetics arrived from Philippines prior to Lapita and the Oceanic scatter?"

    The Lapita was obviously spread 'with' the Austronesian languages which had arrived from the Philippines. But the population of the Trobriand Islands are not really Lapita, they are post-Lapita. I agree that they may preserve elements of the early seed population though.

    "they are one of those uninhabited small islands that you so often argue for, that early Austronesians, with their mariner economy, made their own more easily. That's why we see so much Austronesian-specific genetics among modern Trobrianders".

    Very likely to be the case. And interestingly the region totally lacks the Melanesian haplogroups M27, M28 and M29. These are the very haplogroups you insist first carried the Lapita and the Austronesian languages out into Remote Oceania. If your above statement is correct then these last haplogroups cannot have been present during that first expansion into Remote Oceania. The mainland New Guinea haplogroups P1, P2, P4a, Q1 and Q2 have been found in these islands but they could have arrived at any time, even after the first Austronesian-speaking groups.

    ReplyDelete
  45. The paper is interesting and seems on first sight to support your idead of Admiralty being related to the seed Austronesian (proto-Oceanic) population in similar (not identical) genetic terms to Trobriand.

    All the rest is the same boring nonsense. You simply imagine that secondary waves can displace the primary ones, centuries after the first ones, with no archaeological or any other kind of factual backing other than wild imagination (yours or someone else's imagination, I don't care), just because you imagine it to be that way.

    C2a is not SE Asian: it is Wallacean and therefore Melanesian. Wallacea may be now semi-incorporated by admixture to SE Asia but it was not that way originally and everything genetic from mtDNA to Denisovan admixture ties it to Australasia. Wallacea has no C2a whatsoever. Wallacea was not the origin of Oceanic but a rather dead end for the related but different Malay expansion.


    Well, the answer is and will be "no", logically.

    "... the population of the Trobriand Islands are not really Lapita, they are post-Lapita".

    Really? How do you know that? And, if it is, how does it matter, they'd be still descendants somehow of the admixture of the seed proto-Oceanic population and the local native Melanesians in the process of Oceanic cultural-linguistic expansion by Melanesian human means primarily.

    "I agree that they may preserve elements of the early seed population though".

    They are the closest thing to Admiralty in their genetic composition. Wherever the seed population existed, these two are the closest thing we have found to their immediate descendants in the area.

    "... the region totally lacks the Melanesian haplogroups"...

    Which region?

    "The mainland New Guinea haplogroups P1, P2, P4a, Q1 and Q2 have been found in these islands"...

    Lucky us! But wait I'm sure that Terry can fathom some hyper-convoluted "explanation" that fits his segregationist model.

    ReplyDelete
  46. terryt wrote,

    "O3a has been recorded in the New Guinea coast and the islands to the southeast and as I understand things Vanuatu has not been closely examined for Y-DNA so we cannot draw conclusions on that matter yet."

    Northern Vanuatu, at least, has been sampled for Y-DNA in at least two different studies:

    Bing Su, Li Jin, Peter Underhill, Jeremy Martinson, Nilmani Saha, Stephen T. McGarvey, Mark D. Shriver, Jiayou Chu, Peter Oefner, Ranajit Chakraborty, and Ranjan Deka, "Polynesian origins: Insights from the Y chromosome," PNAS, vol. 97, no. 15, 8225–8228 (July 18, 2000):

    Banks & Torres (northernmost Vanuatu)
    2/6 H1 (=Y*(xDE-DYS287, F-M89))
    2/6 H5 (=K-M9(xO3-M122, O1a-M119, O2a1-M95, P-M45, M1-M5))
    1/6 H6 (=O3-M122(xO3a2b-M7, O3a2c1-M134))
    1/6 H17 (=M1-M5)

    Maewo (northeastern Vanuatu)
    6/10 H5 (=K-M9(xO3-M122, O1a-M119, O2a1-M95, P-M45, M1-M5))
    2/10 H6 (=O3-M122(xO3a2b-M7, O3a2c1-M134))
    2/10 H17 (=M1-M5)

    Santo (i.e. Espiritu Santo, the largest island of Vanuatu, located in the northwestern part of the archipelago)
    4/4 H5 (=K-M9(xO3-M122, O1a-M119, O2a1-M95, P-M45, M1-M5))

    Vanuatu total
    2/20 = 10% H1 (=Y*(xDE-DYS287, F-M89))
    12/20 = 60% H5 (=K-M9(xO3-M122, O1a-M119, O2a1-M95, P-M45, M1-M5))
    3/20 = 15% H6 (=O3-M122(xO3a2b-M7, O3a2c1-M134))
    3/20 = 15% H17 (=M1-M5)

    ----------------------------------

    Karafet et al. 2010:

    Vanuatu-Maewo (sample borrowed from Cox et al.)
    9/44 = 20.5% C2-M38(xC2a-M208)
    1/44 = 2.3% C2a-M208(xC2a1-P33)
    10/44 = 22.7% C2-M38 total

    1/44 = 2.3% J2-M172(xJ2b-M12)

    6/44 = 13.6% MNOPS-M526(x?K3-P261, M-P256, N-M231, O1a-M119, O2-P31, O3-M122, Q1-P36.2, R1a1a-M17, R1b1-P25, R2a-M124, S-M230)

    2/44 = 4.5% M1b*-P87(xM1b1-P22)
    9/44 = 20.5% M1b1-P22
    2/44 = 4.5% M2-M353
    4/44 = 9.1% M3-P118
    17/44 = 38.6% M-P256 total

    1/44 = 2.3% O3a-P197(xO3a1c-JST002611, O3a2-P201)
    2/44 = 4.5% O3a2-P201(?xO3a2b-M7, O3a2c1-M134)
    3/44 = 6.8% O3-M122 total

    1/44 = 2.3% O1a*-M119(xO1a1-P203.1, O1a2-M110)
    1/44 = 2.3% O1a2-M110
    2/44 = 4.5% O1a-M119 total
    5/44 = 11.4% O-M175 total?

    1/44 = 2.3% R1b1a2-M269

    1/44 = 2.3% S*-M230(xS1-M254)
    3/44 = 6.8% S1-M254(xS1d-M226)
    4/44 = 9.1% S-M230 total

    In addition, the results of analysis of a sample of Y-DNA from Vanuatu have been reported in a paper by Hurles et al. 2005, but it is not clear how much this sample might overlap with the aforementioned sample of Ni-Vanuatu from the island of Maewo reported in papers by Cox et al. and Karafet et al.:

    Vanuatu (Austronesian > Malayo-Polynesian > Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian > Oceanic > Central–Eastern Oceanic > Southern Oceanic > Vanuatu (most closely related to the Melanesian languages of New Caledonia))
    30/52 = 57.7% K-M9
    9/52 = 17.3% C-M130
    7/52 = 13.5% M1-M5
    4/52 = 7.7% O3-M122(xO3a2c1-M134)
    1/52 = 1.9% O1a2-M50
    1/52 = 1.9% J-12f2.1

    Unfortunately, the minor island of Maewo has been oversampled, while information regarding the distribution of Y-DNA haplogroups in the rest of the Vanuatu archipelago, the Loyalty Islands, and New Caledonia has not been reported. From a linguistic viewpoint, this means that I know nothing about the Y-DNA of speakers of the South Vanuatu or New Caledonian–Loyalties branches of Southern Oceanic. I am fed up with many geneticists' bad habit of testing only tiny, rather insignificant minority populations while ignoring or horribly undersampling the majority populations of a country, as they have done with Maewo in Vanuatu (and with Tokushima in Japan, minority populations in China, scheduled tribes in India, etc.).

    ReplyDelete
  47. "I am fed up with many geneticists' bad habit of testing only tiny, rather insignificant minority populations while ignoring or horribly undersampling the majority populations of a country, as they have done with Maewo in Vanuatu (and with Tokushima in Japan, minority populations in China, scheduled tribes in India, etc.)".

    Hahaha!

    Of course minority populations are interesting on their own right but hardly too informative for the generality. In the case of India I'm quite fed up not so much with oversampling of tribals (who do have interesting diversity) but oversampling of Brahmins, 3% of the actual Indian population and maybe 50% or more in genetic papers. But well...

    ReplyDelete
  48. "Really? How do you know that? [the population of the Trobriand Islands are not really Lapita, they are post-Lapita]"

    The paper I linked to claimed that, that's how I know it. I realise that of course you know more about the subject than do the authors of the paper.

    "C2a is not SE Asian: it is Wallacean and therefore Melanesian. Wallacea may be now semi-incorporated by admixture to SE Asia but it was not that way originally"

    Thank you. At last. Yes, C2 is Wallacean and people from the north have moved more recently through much of SE Asia, not just Wallacea, and are now incorporated in the population of the region. That's what I've been trying to tell you for years.

    "Wallacea was not the origin of Oceanic but a rather dead end for the related but different Malay expansion".

    I have never claimed Wallacea was the origin of Oceanic or C2a except in the deeper sense. But Oceanic clearly derives from a branch of languages spoken through SE Asia and C2a obvioulsy coalesced within some region that C2 had managed to reach at some stage.

    "Northern Vanuatu, at least, has been sampled for Y-DNA in at least two different studies"

    Thanks for that information. K9 (of some sort) is very prominent in the 2000 paper. We do know it is xO3-M122, O1a-M119, O2a1-M95, P-M45, M1-M5 though. Possibly K3 in today's nomenclature. In the 2010 paper C2 is prominent in Maewo, which it should not be according to Maju's reasoning. And both O3a and O1a are also present. That negates any necessity of postulating a 'southern route' into Remote Oceania via the Trobriand Islands for those two haplogroups.

    "information regarding the distribution of Y-DNA haplogroups in the rest of the Vanuatu archipelago, the Loyalty Islands, and New Caledonia has not been reported".

    That is why I have been concentrating on mt-DNA in this discussion. And Maju has previously often claimed mt-DNA is a better marker of ancient population movement than is Y-DNA. But it seems he is unhappy with that idea for Remote Oceania.

    "I am fed up with many geneticists' bad habit of testing only tiny, rather insignificant minority populations while ignoring or horribly undersampling the majority populations of a country, as they have done with Maewo in Vanuatu"

    But in this case Maewo is a fairly northerly Vanuatu island, and most (except for Maju) accept that in general the movement into Remote Oceania was from north to south and then east. Maewo would be central to developments in that case.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "The paper I linked to"...

      ... did not mention Trobriand. I made a search and was only found in the names of two bibliographic references. You mix this with that chaotically.

      "I have never claimed Wallacea was the origin of Oceanic or C2a except in the deeper sense".

      Yes you did. You argued for C2 to have migrated from Wallacea to the Melanesia and beyond WITHIN the Austronesian expansion process (not before), what is inconsistent with all we know. You do insist once and again about that, rejecting upfront the more than obvious Papuan origin of C2a (specifically).

      Worse: you are unapologetic while you zig-zag with your opinions in zones of uncertainty you repeatedly create by the more or less artful us of confusing terminology. You are, Terry Toothill, dishonest in your way of debating and disrespectful in this sense to me and this blog's readers.

      You should know that you crossed all red lines multiple times, that you abuse my patience, but you are unrepentant. You seem to find that game of toying with ambiguity funny. I hope that you get sick of your too many laughs at my expense.

      Delete
  49. "... did not mention Trobriand".

    I was considering this paper concering the southeast peninsula of new Guinea, from which the settlers of the Trobriand and D'Entrecasteaux and Louisiade Islands presumably emerged:

    http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/docs/Memoirs/mem_048/manandahalf067.pdf

    Quote:

    "COLONISATION (0-400 A.D.)
    The visible prehistory of the area began with an episode of colonisation and with the appearance of a number of communities making a kind of pottery which has been called Early Papuan Ware. This material will probably prove to be derived ultimately from Lapita pottery but the gap in time and space has yet to be documented. Certainly there are some tenuous stylistic links between Early Papuan Ware and pottery in the Bismarcks currently thought to be Lapita derived also, as at the island of Watom just north of east New Britain which has been recently re-excavated (Green and Anson 1987)".

    And this one, which does mention the Trobriand in passing, but covers the whole southward Lapita spread very well:

    http://epress.anu.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ch0525.pdf

    "You argued for C2 to have migrated from Wallacea to the Melanesia and beyond WITHIN the Austronesian expansion process (not before)"

    And that remains the most likely scenario, but that does not claim anything about C2a originating in Wallacea.

    "what is inconsistent with all we know".

    On the contrary it is entirely consistent with what we know. In fact it is the only scenario that makes sense. After all C2 reached Maewo, which it can have done no earlier than the Lapita I/Austronesian expansion. C2a could have coalesced anywhere between the Admiralty Islands and Maewo, and C2 is extremely unlikely to have reached the Admiralty Islands very long before the development of Lapita I.

    "You do insist once and again about that, rejecting upfront the more than obvious Papuan origin of C2a (specifically)".

    There is absolutely no evidence for a New Guinea origin for C2a except in your imagination. I agree it could have coalesced in Melanesia from a recently-arrived C2 from Wallacea though.

    "You should know that you crossed all red lines multiple times, that you abuse my patience, but you are unrepentant".

    Because you insist on misinterpreting the evidence for the human movement into Remote Oceania, although I note this comment:

    "The paper is interesting and seems on first sight to support your idead of Admiralty being related to the seed Austronesian (proto-Oceanic) population"

    So just re-read all your own links and note that Lapita was closely associated with coastal localities even there. The first stop after the Admiralties was Santa Cruz, and then Lapita I rapidly moved south through Vanuatu and then out to Fiji/Tonga/Samoa. Lapita II's later movement was confined to movement into the Solomon Islands, not beyond.

    "I hope that you get sick of your too many laughs at my expense".

    I sincerely hope I do also.

    ReplyDelete
  50. "I was considering this paper"...

    Which you did not mention before (but you claimed you did). No apologies needed, don't worry, just move on, no meditation at all... just insist, hammer Maju once and again until he falls.

    "And that remains the most likely scenario"...

    Unrepentant. I won't debate it today again because in this case my only point was to tell you that you said what you said you did not say. Damn it: get your mind together or shut up!

    ReplyDelete
  51. Stirring the pot a bit more, for what it's worth:

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10859429

    In my opinion, there is nothing in this linguistic study which is inconsistent with the Polynesian atolls of the Solomons being settled by a back migration from Eastern Polynesia. As a sailor that seems much more reasonable to me than these resource poor atolls in the Solomons being the source of the settlement of Eastern Polynesia.

    Furthermore, to talk of looking for "Hawaiki" is like looking for Valhalla. It is a mythological concept, not a spot on the map.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was hoping it was over for the time being but well...

      I can only agree with you that, at face value at least, there does not seem to be any evidence for colonization the way he says. Also it's more logical to imagine that, generally speaking, all Polynesian languages derive from the same only source in the Samoa-Tonga area of Late Lapita (with further expansion via "French" Polynesia, as discussed elsewhere)- there's always room for the occasional exception, of course.

      "... looking for "Hawaiki" is like looking for Valhalla".

      Valhalla is not the mythical ancestral land of Nordics, I can't subscribe that. Some elements may have been transformed with the course of time but genuine legends often have a seed of truth in them. A more serious comparison would be Eden for Hebrews, which some have argued it could be the Anedena pastoralist common lands of ancient Sumeria (hence Abraham is said to be from Ur, a major Sumerian city).

      Delete
  52. "In my opinion, there is nothing in this linguistic study which is inconsistent with the Polynesian atolls of the Solomons being settled by a back migration from Eastern Polynesia".

    That is the usually accepted position.

    "to talk of looking for 'Hawaiki' is like looking for Valhalla. It is a mythological concept, not a spot on the map".

    Yes and no. As Maju said, 'but genuine legends often have a seed of truth in them'. 'Hawaiki' is actually the same word as 'Hawai'i'. Nobody seriously considers the Polynesians 'originated' in Hawai'i. However the Samoan word 'Savai'i' is again the same word, and many would accept that Polynesians probably originated there:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savai'i

    But to confuse matters the old name for Ra'iatea (Rangiatea in Maori) is also 'Havai'i', the same word:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raiatea

    From Joy's link:

    "He believes outlier populations, sophisticated navigators, voyaged to Samoa and back to the outlier atolls. After a time - it is not clear how long - the language evolved and it was from the atolls that the ancestors of Maori and others eventually set out".

    That doesn't fit the generally accepted reasoning. The 'outlier' languages may be more similar to Eastern than western Polynesian languages but that probably still means the movement was from east to west. In spite of Richard Walter's comments it seems the Polynesian outliers were settled from Futuna rather than direct from Samoa anyway.

    ReplyDelete

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