1.2 Genetic Evidence for a Spice Island Polynesian Homeland
5
adequate understanding of the maritime history of the Spice Islands but more vitally
for understanding the choice of migration paths and the sequence and timing of
Spice Island-based migrations. For we came to see these migrations as forming
part of a long history of exploration and settlement in both the Pacific and Indian
Oceans, initiated and pursued over millennia by Spice Island mariners and traders
and their descendants exploiting the power and warmth of West Pacific Warm Pool
currents.
1.2 Genetic Evidence for a Spice Island Polynesian Homeland
For the last 50 years Taiwan has been accepted by most archaeologists and prehistorians as the homeland of the so-called Lapita peoples, ancestors of the Polynesians.
But recent genetic evidence now challenges accepted paradigms based on the late
arrival in Near Oceania of Chinese agriculturalists migrating via Taiwan, Luzon
and the Philippines. These Chinese agriculturalists are said to have arrived in the
Bismarck and Solomon archipelagoes 3,600 years ago, rapidly expanding from there
into Remote Oceania and Western Polynesia. After a hiatus variously estimated to
be from 500 to 1,500 years their descendants are seen as moving on to colonize
Eastern Polynesia.
In the past seven years Stephen Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer and Richards and
Trejaut et al. have provided genetic evidence challenging the theory of a Taiwanese
origin for the Polynesian peoples. Study of coalescence times for three mutations,
which differentiate Spice Islanders, coastal Papuans and Polynesians from populations in Taiwan, Luzon and the Philippines, has provided strong evidence for a
Polynesian homeland in Wallacea. All three differentiating mutations have been
sourced to the region:
(i) the fourth polymorphism of the “Polynesian motif” [1];
(ii) the mitochondrial mutation at np 14022 which differentiates the later haplogroup B4a1a1 (common to Spice Islanders, coastal Papuans and Polynesians)
from the older haplogroup B4a1a (found in the Philippines, Luzon and amongst
indigenous Austronesian-speaking Taiwanese tribes) [2]; and
(iii) the Y chromosome mutation M38 [3].
The coalescence times for these mutations jointly suggest that the most recent
genetic interactions between the two groups of populations – Spice Islanders, coastal
Papuans and Polynesians on the one hand and populations in Taiwan, Luzon and the
Philippines on the other (as represented in modern all-female and all-male lines) –
may have occurred about 11,500 years ago. That is, 8,000 years before the so-called
Express Train to Polynesia (according to the commonly accepted paradigm carrying
Chinese farmers from Taiwan) could have arrived in Near Oceania. Recent genetic
analysis involving full genome sequencing of the mitochondrial haplogroup E,
5
adequate understanding of the maritime history of the Spice Islands but more vitally
for understanding the choice of migration paths and the sequence and timing of
Spice Island-based migrations. For we came to see these migrations as forming
part of a long history of exploration and settlement in both the Pacific and Indian
Oceans, initiated and pursued over millennia by Spice Island mariners and traders
and their descendants exploiting the power and warmth of West Pacific Warm Pool
currents.
1.2 Genetic Evidence for a Spice Island Polynesian Homeland
For the last 50 years Taiwan has been accepted by most archaeologists and prehistorians as the homeland of the so-called Lapita peoples, ancestors of the Polynesians.
But recent genetic evidence now challenges accepted paradigms based on the late
arrival in Near Oceania of Chinese agriculturalists migrating via Taiwan, Luzon
and the Philippines. These Chinese agriculturalists are said to have arrived in the
Bismarck and Solomon archipelagoes 3,600 years ago, rapidly expanding from there
into Remote Oceania and Western Polynesia. After a hiatus variously estimated to
be from 500 to 1,500 years their descendants are seen as moving on to colonize
Eastern Polynesia.
In the past seven years Stephen Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer and Richards and
Trejaut et al. have provided genetic evidence challenging the theory of a Taiwanese
origin for the Polynesian peoples. Study of coalescence times for three mutations,
which differentiate Spice Islanders, coastal Papuans and Polynesians from populations in Taiwan, Luzon and the Philippines, has provided strong evidence for a
Polynesian homeland in Wallacea. All three differentiating mutations have been
sourced to the region:
(i) the fourth polymorphism of the “Polynesian motif” [1];
(ii) the mitochondrial mutation at np 14022 which differentiates the later haplogroup B4a1a1 (common to Spice Islanders, coastal Papuans and Polynesians)
from the older haplogroup B4a1a (found in the Philippines, Luzon and amongst
indigenous Austronesian-speaking Taiwanese tribes) [2]; and
(iii) the Y chromosome mutation M38 [3].
The coalescence times for these mutations jointly suggest that the most recent
genetic interactions between the two groups of populations – Spice Islanders, coastal
Papuans and Polynesians on the one hand and populations in Taiwan, Luzon and the
Philippines on the other (as represented in modern all-female and all-male lines) –
may have occurred about 11,500 years ago. That is, 8,000 years before the so-called
Express Train to Polynesia (according to the commonly accepted paradigm carrying
Chinese farmers from Taiwan) could have arrived in Near Oceania. Recent genetic
analysis involving full genome sequencing of the mitochondrial haplogroup E,