Genomic insights into the peopling of the Southwest Pacific
Authors list
Pontus Skoglund Cosimo Posth Kendra Sirak Matthew Spriggs Frederique Valentin Stuart Bedford Geoffrey R Clark Christian Reepmeyer Fiona Petchey Daniel Fernandes Qiaomei Fu Eadaoin Harney Mark Lipson Swapan Mallick Mario Novak Nadin Rohland Kristin Stewardson Syafiq Abdullah Murray P Cox Françoise R Friedlaender Jonathan S Friedlaender Toomas Kivisild George Koki Pradiptajati Kusuma D Andrew Merriwether Francois-X Ricaut Joseph TS Wee Nick Patterson Johannes Krause Ron Pinhasi David Reich Toggle all authors (31)
Abstract
The appearance of people associated with the Lapita culture in the South Pacific around 3,000 years ago marked the beginning of the last major human dispersal to unpopulated lands. However, the relationship of these pioneers to the long-established Papuan people of the New Guinea region is unclear. Here we present genome-wide ancient DNA data from three individuals from Vanuatu (about 3,100-2,700 years before present) and one from Tonga (about 2,700-2,300 years before present), and analyse them with data from 778 present-day East Asians and Oceanians. Today, indigenous people of the South Pacific harbour a mixture of ancestry from Papuans and a population of East Asian origin that no longer exists in unmixed form, but is a match to the ancient individuals. Most analyses have interpreted the minimum of twenty-five per cent Papuan ancestry in the region today as evidence that the first humans to reach Remote Oceania, including Polynesia, were derived from population mixtures near New Guinea, before their further expansion into Remote Oceania. However, our finding that the ancient individuals had little to no Papuan ancestry implies that later human population movements spread Papuan ancestry through the South Pacific after the first peopling of the islands.
Journal details
Journal Nature
Volume 538
Issue number 7626
Pages 510-513
Available online
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Full text links
Publisher website (DOI) 10.1038/nature19844
Europe PubMed Central 27698418
Pubmed 27698418
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