2.5 Polynesian Cold Resistance and Famine Resistance: Houghton’s Evidence
27
the Moluccas and New Guinea region establishes instead a base in Wallacea or Near
Oceania for their introduction into the Pacific.
The recent genetic research focussed on Polynesian commensal animals has
highlighted the role of Wallacea generally and the Spice Islands in particular as
a major centre for plant and animal domestication. The Spice Islands might almost
be thought of as an Island Southeast Asian “Fertile Crescent”. Not all the animals
that formed the basis of the agriculture they practised were indigenous to the Spice
Islands. The pig came from peninsula Southeast Asia, the Polynesian chicken has
at least two separate sources in mainland Asia and, like the pig, was presumably
brought to the Spice Island region by Spice Island traders. The Spice Island mariners
who first carried their plant and animal domesticates into the Pacific brought them to
uninhabited islands. There, as we shall see in Chapter 7, the process of domestication continued. Similarly, the hybridizing skills of the Spice Islanders’ descendants
were used to genetically modify plants to meet the new climates and soil conditions
they encountered or to serve evolving cultural practices. These skills, as we noted in
the Introduction, enabled Spice Island colonists to turn depauperate Pacific islands
into lands capable of supporting significant populations.
The possibility that the Spice Islands were a diffusion base for the spread of
Asiatic chickens to America is considered in detail in Chapter 6. The recent genetic
evidence of Storey et al. for the pre-Columbian introduction of the Polynesian
chicken to America [27] is discussed together with both linguistic and cultural
evidence for the diffusion of the chicken within America from a base in northern
Mexico (close to the southern coast of California, the landfall to which the Kuro
Shio Current would have drawn the canoes of Spice Island explorers and traders).
2.5 Polynesian Cold Resistance and Famine Resistance:
Houghton’s Evidence
Understanding Houghton’s research and its implications is vital to any debate about
Polynesian origins. Houghton demonstrates that without the selective advantage
of genetic cold resistance and famine resistance, Spice Island mariners and their
Polynesian descendants would have been physiologically incapable of exploring
and settling islands scattered across a quarter of the globe. We attempt in the following pages to summarize his research as a vital evidence base for the prehistory we
propose for the Spice Island ancestors of the Polynesian peoples as early maritime
explorers and spice traders.
The Polynesian cold-adapted body type is characterized by a tall body, a round
head, a long thick trunk and short thick arms and legs and a large muscle-mass.
Anatomists are said to be able to recognize a Polynesian skeleton from uniquely
large muscle attachments visible on the bones. The selection principles involved
are, of course, a limiting of the body’s surface in relation to body mass to reduce
loss of body heat and a maximizing of muscle mass to enable maximal capacity
for exercise and for shivering, both of which generate body heat and are major
27
the Moluccas and New Guinea region establishes instead a base in Wallacea or Near
Oceania for their introduction into the Pacific.
The recent genetic research focussed on Polynesian commensal animals has
highlighted the role of Wallacea generally and the Spice Islands in particular as
a major centre for plant and animal domestication. The Spice Islands might almost
be thought of as an Island Southeast Asian “Fertile Crescent”. Not all the animals
that formed the basis of the agriculture they practised were indigenous to the Spice
Islands. The pig came from peninsula Southeast Asia, the Polynesian chicken has
at least two separate sources in mainland Asia and, like the pig, was presumably
brought to the Spice Island region by Spice Island traders. The Spice Island mariners
who first carried their plant and animal domesticates into the Pacific brought them to
uninhabited islands. There, as we shall see in Chapter 7, the process of domestication continued. Similarly, the hybridizing skills of the Spice Islanders’ descendants
were used to genetically modify plants to meet the new climates and soil conditions
they encountered or to serve evolving cultural practices. These skills, as we noted in
the Introduction, enabled Spice Island colonists to turn depauperate Pacific islands
into lands capable of supporting significant populations.
The possibility that the Spice Islands were a diffusion base for the spread of
Asiatic chickens to America is considered in detail in Chapter 6. The recent genetic
evidence of Storey et al. for the pre-Columbian introduction of the Polynesian
chicken to America [27] is discussed together with both linguistic and cultural
evidence for the diffusion of the chicken within America from a base in northern
Mexico (close to the southern coast of California, the landfall to which the Kuro
Shio Current would have drawn the canoes of Spice Island explorers and traders).
2.5 Polynesian Cold Resistance and Famine Resistance:
Houghton’s Evidence
Understanding Houghton’s research and its implications is vital to any debate about
Polynesian origins. Houghton demonstrates that without the selective advantage
of genetic cold resistance and famine resistance, Spice Island mariners and their
Polynesian descendants would have been physiologically incapable of exploring
and settling islands scattered across a quarter of the globe. We attempt in the following pages to summarize his research as a vital evidence base for the prehistory we
propose for the Spice Island ancestors of the Polynesian peoples as early maritime
explorers and spice traders.
The Polynesian cold-adapted body type is characterized by a tall body, a round
head, a long thick trunk and short thick arms and legs and a large muscle-mass.
Anatomists are said to be able to recognize a Polynesian skeleton from uniquely
large muscle attachments visible on the bones. The selection principles involved
are, of course, a limiting of the body’s surface in relation to body mass to reduce
loss of body heat and a maximizing of muscle mass to enable maximal capacity
for exercise and for shivering, both of which generate body heat and are major