22
2 The Genetic Context
earlier dispersals to the postglacial flooding that followed global climate change at
the end of the last Ice Age. They conclude that “the strongest signals in our data
appear to result from the movement and expansion of indigenous, rather than introgressive, mtDNA lineages, dating to between 15,000 and 5,000 years ago”. They
note that only about 20% at most of modern mitochondrial DNA could be linked to
an Out of Taiwan agricultural expansion in the mid-Holocene, suggesting that “if an
agriculturalist migration did take place, it was demographically minor, at least with
regard to the involvement of women”. Thus the authors reject the suggestion of a
Neolithic expansion involving population replacement in favour of a more complex
view of migrations in the region involving large-scale postglacial dispersals over
possibly a 10,000-year period triggered by global climate change.
This interpretation is reinforced in a paper by Pedro Soares et al., published in
2008 [15], using “the sequence variation in complete mtDNA genomes to investigate
the possibility that a signal of late glacial and postglacial dispersals exists in ISEA”
(p. 1209). This paper concludes that “global warming and sea-level rises at the end
of the Ice Age, 15,000–7000 years ago, were the main forces shaping modern human
diversity in the region”. The authors, moreover, argue that
archaeological evidence provides independent support for a large-scale dispersal across
ISEA (or central/eastern Sundaland and Wallacea, as the region then was) during the 15,000
years after the LGM [Last Glacial Maximum]. . . The signature of dispersals from this
region at the end of the Ice Age is evident both in the distribution of mtDNA haplogroup E
lineages and the expansion of the flake-blade technocomplex (p. 1216).
In his classic work Eden in the East, The Drowned Continent of Southeast
Asia [16], Oppenheimer not only presents genetic evidence in favour of an ancient
Polynesian homeland in Wallacea for the Polynesian peoples but also draws on evidence from many sources to support his thesis that the Moluccas, the Spice Islands,
possessed a very ancient culture and were a major centre for the diffusion of culture. He provides evidence, for example, for the diffusion of myths from the Spice
Islands to Mesopotamia, the Middle East, Europe, Asia and the Pacific:
In our discussion of the ‘Garden of Eden’. . .the tiny islands of Maluku were the epicentre of
the immortality myths, the creative tree and its main descendant – the dying and rising god.
The added motif that gave the ‘dying and rising god’ story its tragic flavour was the myth of
the two brothers. The genetic and linguistic mix in Maluku gives a much older glimpse of
the transition between Asia and Melanesia than the conventional dating of the Austronesian
dispersal allows [17].
Traders have always had a major role in the dispersal of myths and cultural practices. Oppenheimer’s evidence for the diffusion of culture from the Spice Islands
fits well with the role we propose for the Spice Islanders as the earliest international
maritime traders. The antiquity of Moluccan (Spice Island) myths and the range
of their maritime dispersal support the antiquity of Spice Island indigenous culture and emphasize the strength and range of Spice Island cultural influence, both
through maritime trade contact over millennia and through pre-flood land migrations via Sundaland to the Middle East and Europe. The strong cultural link of the
2 The Genetic Context
earlier dispersals to the postglacial flooding that followed global climate change at
the end of the last Ice Age. They conclude that “the strongest signals in our data
appear to result from the movement and expansion of indigenous, rather than introgressive, mtDNA lineages, dating to between 15,000 and 5,000 years ago”. They
note that only about 20% at most of modern mitochondrial DNA could be linked to
an Out of Taiwan agricultural expansion in the mid-Holocene, suggesting that “if an
agriculturalist migration did take place, it was demographically minor, at least with
regard to the involvement of women”. Thus the authors reject the suggestion of a
Neolithic expansion involving population replacement in favour of a more complex
view of migrations in the region involving large-scale postglacial dispersals over
possibly a 10,000-year period triggered by global climate change.
This interpretation is reinforced in a paper by Pedro Soares et al., published in
2008 [15], using “the sequence variation in complete mtDNA genomes to investigate
the possibility that a signal of late glacial and postglacial dispersals exists in ISEA”
(p. 1209). This paper concludes that “global warming and sea-level rises at the end
of the Ice Age, 15,000–7000 years ago, were the main forces shaping modern human
diversity in the region”. The authors, moreover, argue that
archaeological evidence provides independent support for a large-scale dispersal across
ISEA (or central/eastern Sundaland and Wallacea, as the region then was) during the 15,000
years after the LGM [Last Glacial Maximum]. . . The signature of dispersals from this
region at the end of the Ice Age is evident both in the distribution of mtDNA haplogroup E
lineages and the expansion of the flake-blade technocomplex (p. 1216).
In his classic work Eden in the East, The Drowned Continent of Southeast
Asia [16], Oppenheimer not only presents genetic evidence in favour of an ancient
Polynesian homeland in Wallacea for the Polynesian peoples but also draws on evidence from many sources to support his thesis that the Moluccas, the Spice Islands,
possessed a very ancient culture and were a major centre for the diffusion of culture. He provides evidence, for example, for the diffusion of myths from the Spice
Islands to Mesopotamia, the Middle East, Europe, Asia and the Pacific:
In our discussion of the ‘Garden of Eden’. . .the tiny islands of Maluku were the epicentre of
the immortality myths, the creative tree and its main descendant – the dying and rising god.
The added motif that gave the ‘dying and rising god’ story its tragic flavour was the myth of
the two brothers. The genetic and linguistic mix in Maluku gives a much older glimpse of
the transition between Asia and Melanesia than the conventional dating of the Austronesian
dispersal allows [17].
Traders have always had a major role in the dispersal of myths and cultural practices. Oppenheimer’s evidence for the diffusion of culture from the Spice Islands
fits well with the role we propose for the Spice Islanders as the earliest international
maritime traders. The antiquity of Moluccan (Spice Island) myths and the range
of their maritime dispersal support the antiquity of Spice Island indigenous culture and emphasize the strength and range of Spice Island cultural influence, both
through maritime trade contact over millennia and through pre-flood land migrations via Sundaland to the Middle East and Europe. The strong cultural link of the