Sweet potato redux - more evidence in support of the Polynesian theory

Sweet potato link

A study supporting a three fold migration of sweet potatoes into Polynesia with the earliest date around 1000 AD

Abstract: The history of sweet potato in the Pacific has long been an enigma. Archaeological, linguistic, and ethnobotanical data suggest that prehistoric human-mediated dispersal events contributed to the distribution in Oceania of this American domesticate. According to the “tripartite hypothesis,” sweet potato was introduced into Oceania from South America in pre-Columbian times and was then later newly introduced, and diffused widely across the Pacific, by Europeans via two historically documented routes from Mexico and the Caribbean. Although sweet potato is the most convincing example of putative pre-Columbian connections between human occupants of Polynesia and South America, the search for genetic evidence of pre-Columbian dispersal of sweet potato into Oceania has been inconclusive. Our study attempts to fill this gap. Using complementary sets of markers (chloroplast and nuclear microsatellites) and both modern and herbarium samples, we test the tripartite hypothesis. Our results provide strong support for prehistoric transfer(s) of sweet potato from South America (Peru-Ecuador region) into Polynesia. Our results also document a temporal shift in the pattern of distribution of genetic variation in sweet potato in Oceania. Later reintroductions, accompanied by recombination between distinct sweet potato gene pools, have reshuffled the crop’s initial genetic base, obscuring primary patterns of diffusion and, at the same time, giving rise to an impressive number of local variants. Moreover, our study shows that phenotypes, names, and neutral genes do not necessarily share completely parallel evolutionary histories. Multidisciplinary approaches, thus, appear necessary for accurate reconstruction of the intertwined histories of plants and humans........

Originally posted by Hanslune
Sweet potato link

A study supporting a three fold migration of sweet potatoes into Polynesia with the earliest date around 1000 AD

Abstract: The history of sweet potato in the Pacific has long been an enigma. Archaeological, linguistic, and ethnobotanical data suggest that prehistoric human-mediated dispersal events contributed to the distribution in Oceania of this American domesticate. According to the “tripartite hypothesis,” sweet potato was introduced into Oceania from South America in pre-Columbian times and was then later newly introduced, and diffused widely across the Pacific, by Europeans via two historically documented routes from Mexico and the Caribbean. Although sweet potato is the most convincing example of putative pre-Columbian connections between human occupants of Polynesia and South America, the search for genetic evidence of pre-Columbian dispersal of sweet potato into Oceania has been inconclusive. Our study attempts to fill this gap. Using complementary sets of markers (chloroplast and nuclear microsatellites) and both modern and herbarium samples, we test the tripartite hypothesis. Our results provide strong support for prehistoric transfer(s) of sweet potato from South America (Peru-Ecuador region) into Polynesia. Our results also document a temporal shift in the pattern of distribution of genetic variation in sweet potato in Oceania. Later reintroductions, accompanied by recombination between distinct sweet potato gene pools, have reshuffled the crop’s initial genetic base, obscuring primary patterns of diffusion and, at the same time, giving rise to an impressive number of local variants. Moreover, our study shows that phenotypes, names, and neutral genes do not necessarily share completely parallel evolutionary histories.
Multidisciplinary approaches, thus, appear necessary for accurate reconstruction of the intertwined histories of plants and humans........

edit on 23/1/13 by Hanslune because: (no reason given)

Sweeet Hans,
That's awsome,
I have to ask , Have you drank the cool aid.
For years people have been taking the stance of an American/polynesian connection.
Well here it is.
One thing I find more interesting is the disperstion of the bottle gourd and paper mulberry, both of which figure heavily in polynesian history.
S and F my friend

I've been a supporter of Polynesian contact with SA since 1969 just a lack of enough evidence ..... This is really not enough either but it will help!

I suspect the Polynesians made the coast but were overwhelmed by the many war like kingdoms...... of course they may have survived for some time obviously if this study is correct at least one canoe went back carrying SP. To 'nail it' you'll need to find archaeological evidence in SA of the Polynesians being there or SA cultural material in Polynesia.

I forgot the 9 bp deletion genetic marker that polyneans share with native americans,
And the cultural similarities shared with northern coastal native americans, such as the phallus/vagina mortar and pestle, and mat currency, also the two piece toggle fish hook and the shark tooth pendant.

You have opened a" pacific can' o worms"

Kon Tiki potatoes!
Who would have guessed
S&F great find.

I read about that a couple of years ago somewhere. It wasn't widely accepted at the time though. Is it finally being accepted now?

reply to post by rickymouse


Just more meat for the stew we'll see what rebuttals come. With genetic data there can be disaster and error......remembering the Polynesian chicken fiasco.

This study looked at the same question from earlier studies but using a different data set - because those earlier studies didn't sway or gather sufficient consensus.

reply to post by Hanslune


The problem is that the Polynesian history shows it there long ago and a lot of evidence backs the new theory about the very old trade routes.

Originally posted by Hanslune
reply to post by rickymouse

 

Just more meat for the stew we'll see what rebuttals come. With genetic data there can be disaster and error......remembering the Polynesian chicken fiasco.

This study looked at the same question from earlier studies but using a different data set - because those earlier studies didn't sway or gather sufficient consensus.

edit on 23/1/13 by Hanslune because: (no reason given)

Here a tidbit on the presence of a specific HLA sequence found in Easter islander tagged has American origins.

Abstract. It is now generally accepted that Polynesia was first settled by peoples from southeast Asia. An alternative that eastern parts of Polynesia were first inhabited by Amerindians has found little support. There are, however, many indications of a ‘prehistoric’ (i.e. before Polynesia was discovered by Europeans) contact between Polynesia and the Americas, but genetic evidence of a prehistoric Amerindian contribution to the Polynesian gene pool has been lacking. We recently carried out genomic HLA (human leucocyte antigen) typing as well as typing for mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y chromosome markers of blood samples collected in 1971 and 2008 from reputedly non-admixed Easter Islanders. All individuals carried HLA alleles and mtDNA types previously found in Polynesia, and most of the males carried Y chromosome markers of Polynesian origin (a few had European Y chromosome markers), further supporting an initial Polynesian population on Easter Island. The HLA investigations revealed, however, that some individuals also carried HLA alleles which have previously almost only been found in Amerindians. We could trace the introduction of these Amerindian alleles to before the Peruvian slave trades, i.e. before the 1860s, and provide suggestive evidence that they were introduced already in prehistoric time. Our results demonstrate an early Amerindian contribution to the Polynesian gene pool on Easter Island, and illustrate the usefulness of typing for immunogenetic markers such as HLA to complement mtDNA and Y chromosome analyses in anthropological investigations.

The link to the study

rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org...

And Dr. Dziebel's commentary on said paper,

Erik Thorsby’s study appears to be the first clear documentation of a genetic contribution of Amerindians to Polynesians that happened prior to the Peruvian slave trade in the 19th century. He detected two Amerindian-specific HLA alleles (A*02:12 and B*39:05) among unadmixed Easter Islanders. These alleles complement the otherwise-typical Polynesian pool of Easter Islanders. It’s unlikely that these alleles were more wide-spread in Polynesia in the past (as Thor Heyerdahl would want to have it). Thorsby offers a better explanation: in accordance with the findings of chicken remains with Polynesian mtDNA in El Arenal, southern Chile and the suggestive evidence of pre-Columbian Polynesian ancestry in Mocha Island, Chile, he writes, “…There is strong evidence that Polynesians had been in South America early, i.e. in pre-Columbian time. After having arrived in South America, some of them may have returned to Polynesia, including Easter Island, not only taking the sweet potato and bottle gourd, etc., but also some native Americans with them ."

anthropogenesis.kinshipstudies.org...

Honestly, I've read the rebuttals to to the chicken findings, and I'm not convinced. There were serious flaws in the logicof the counter arguments. These same flaws can be found in the arguments against an early entrance into Easter island. I will have to go back to find the particular points of the counter chicken argument that I have a problem with, but as to the time line of the peopleing of Easter is. the new arriaval camp (1200ce?) bases their argument on the signs of the appearance of the polynesian rat. They havr made an assumption that the first people their came with the polynesian rat. They make this ASSumptionbased on the appearance of rat chewed palm nuts. Really?, within the archeological record. But they also ingnore the fact that of all of the polynesian settled islands, Easter is. is unique in that they never had the pig.
How can that be ? The polynesian pig, along with the rat, the dog and chicken was part of the polynesian cultural "package'. The only answer is that the people who settled Easter island got there before their west polynesian descendants/cousins obtained what was actually a Lapita cultural package in east melanesia.
The genetic trace of the polynesian rat clearly shows an east to west dispersal.
Also certain polynesian canoe construction techniques show links to a temperate rain forest woods.
Sewn plank canoes used by Hawaiians, bear a strinking resemblance to the sewn plank Tolmos of the chumash, of central cal,. This is not because they were related,but there may have been Hawaiian influence, but because they used the same types of drift wood to make canoes.
They both used easily split soft woods such as cedar, fir,pine and redwwod. Cedar and redwood being the most desirable. This is in contrast to the huge single log dugouts constructed by people who live in a tropical hardwood forest.

Ahh kumara is so good eating, either mashed baked or boiled there is nothing else like it!

I too believe they had contact with the South Americas, I remember looking at some old pottery found in SA of different faces, they looked like all different races of people and one of them looked so like a Polynesian it was amazing.

Considering how war like the Maori people were what an epic battle it would have been between some SA native tribe and a Polynesian one

Archaeologists are the most arrogant of all the "professional scientists", they really know squat. Every day they are revising the official story of history.

1,200-Year-Old Traces of Chocolate Found in Utah
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA—According to archaeologist Dorothy Washburn of the University of Pennsylvania and her husband chemist William Washburn, traces of theobromine and caffeine have been found in 1,200-year-old bowls from an archaeological site near Utah’s Canyonlands National Park. These are the oldest-known ingredients of chocolate to be found in North America, and their presence indicates that people living in the northern Southwest had access to cacao beans from Mesoamerica. It had been thought that the two regions had little interaction with each other at this time. And while in Mesoamerica chocolate was processed into a drink sipped by the elite, Utah’s chocolate eaters were “ordinary people” who lived in a village of subterranean pit houses. Washburn and other researchers now want to know how important cacao was to these people and how often they ate it.

Full article

reply to post by Cinrad


Finding chocolate in the US southwest is not out of the ordinary, as the people there had been trading with central Mexican people for quite some time..
Tropical bird feathers and pottery from Mexico have been found at sites in new Mexico and Colorado and Utah.
Mexicans have been found in graves at gran chaco as well.

Originally posted by Hanslune
I've been a supporter of Polynesian contact with SA since 1969 just a lack of enough evidence ..... This is really not enough either but it will help!

I've also recently been shown that the debate over the "Polynesian" chicken bones that were found is still alive and well.

Harte

reply to post by Harte


Hi garter,

Care to elaborate on
what has brought this subject back to the forefront for you?

Originally posted by Cinrad
Archaeologists are the most arrogant of all the "professional scientists", they really know squat. Every day they are revising the official story of history.

Actually I put surgeon's at the head of that list

So you think their is an 'official story' of history? That statement kinda shows that you know virtually nothing about archaeology or how science works - because there ain't no such thing, lol

I would note too that the new claim above comes from scientists.......who make new discoveries every day

Originally posted by Harte

Originally posted by Hanslune
I've been a supporter of Polynesian contact with SA since 1969 just a lack of enough evidence ..... This is really not enough either but it will help!

I've also recently been shown that the debate over the "Polynesian" chicken bones that were found is still alive and well.

Harte

Hey! Well share please

reply to post by punkinworks10

The genetic trace of the polynesian rat clearly shows an east to west dispersal

Oh can you cite something for that please I thought it had been established as coming from SE Asia

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Rickymouse

The problem is that the Polynesian history shows it there long ago and a lot of evidence backs the new theory about the very old trade routes.

Actually it doesn't and a 'trade route' would show up a lot more evidence than the possible exchange of one plant type. Also some peoples can be in contact with one another and not develop 'trade routes' see the the amount of trade that occurred between the Vikings and Skraelings


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Thanks to everyone for their replies

reply to post by Hanslune


Hi Hans,
I will have to retract the statement about rat dispersals in oceana , I was mistaken in my assesment of the paper,and mistook a map of probable austronesian expansion into oceana for a map of actual rat dispersal.
But I still stand by my position of a pacific northwest origin for Hawaiians, and thusly polynesians in general.
I'm am re reading several papers I read previously, while home sick with the flu, which could account for my glaring mis interpretation of the material
Even though it doesn't bolstwry arguments, here is a link on rat dispersal.
www.google.com... .pdf&ei=3VQDUc-TFOXGiwL8h4GYCQ&usg=AFQjCNG08_9mMB5gGiDVmljE1oA-gnZpIw&sig2=q1N6Qw73U9gTTT1eCJ0Aow

Here is a very good paper on the subject
m.pnas.org...
I still see a glaring flaw I logic, in that they tie all human presence in oceana with the presence of the rat. If the earliest people in the area dis not carry the rat then rat sign would not be present.