The lone gene in that stretch of the genome was TYRP1, a gene which plays a role in melanin synthesis in many vertebrates. Cats, rats and pigs with mutant versions of TYRP1 all have lighter hair, while mutations which completely disable it cause a type of albinism in humans. By comparing the sequence of TYRP1 in blond and non-blond individuals, the researchers identified the precise mutation responsible for blond hair. This mutation isn’t severe enough to completely disable the gene; instead, it probably makes it less effective by changing the final shape of the protein encoded by TYRP1. Like most mutations, it seems to be recessive, meaning that both copies of the gene (maternal and paternal) have to be the mutant form in order for it to have an effect. As a result, even though 26% of the population carry the mutated gene, only about 7% have blond hair.

The mutant form of TYRP1 isn’t found in Europeans, where blond hair results from a mutation in a different gene, MC1R. Blond hair must therefore have evolved at least twice in humans: once in Europeans and separately in Melanesians. While there’s nothing surprising about a trait evolving several times, it is remarkable that it’s taken over a decade since the human genome was sequenced for us to discover this about something as prominent as blond hair. One has to wonder what other genes we’ve missed which might underlie the rich variety of human colours, body types, metabolisms and medical conditions.

Genomics research has suffered from an unfortunate bias to date, focusing to a much greater extent on European populations and their descendants than on other groups. Such a narrow focus could lead us to easily miss genetic variants that are prominent in other groups but rare or absent in Europeans. TYRP1 is an excellent example. The mutation found in this study seems to be unique to Melanesians; it was absent in over 50 other populations the team examined from around the world. Some of these undiscovered variants could have significant effects, shaping important aspects of human health and development. Reflecting on the study, Sean Myles described it as “a call for action [...] to ensure that the benefits of current genomics research extend beyond privileged populations and provide an increase in well-being for people everywhere”. I couldn’t agree more.

Refs
Kenny EE, Timpson NJ, Sikora M, Yee MC, Moreno-Estrada A, Eng C, Huntsman S, Burchard EG, Stoneking M, Bustamante CD, & Myles S (2012). Melanesian blond hair is caused by an amino acid change in TYRP1. Science (New York, N.Y.), 336 (6081) PMID: 22556244

The press release from Stanford.

Update: I asked Sean Myles (now an Assistant Professor at Dalhousie University) what made him think it would be worthwhile to investigate this question — why didn’t he buy the “European ancestry” idea? He responded that genetic samples from an earlier visit showed no evidence of European ancestry; coupled with the inheritance pattern, this gave him “a hunch that we were probably dealing with a single gene with large effect that was not shared with Europeans.”

Melanesia

Anthropologists studying Melanesian societies uncovered cultural sexuality unlike any known in Western societies. Some Melanesians societies practice a form of homosexuality within the context of a male initiation ritual that all male members of society must experience.

To obtain or maintain adequate amounts of semen, young Sambian males practice “semen exchange with each other”. Young boys learn to practice fellatio (oral sex) in order to ingest “man milk” (sperm). After puberty they can also take the penetrative role of inseminating younger boys. Once the men are past puberty, they begin the transition to heterosexuality.

Elders testify that boys are unable to mature into men unless they ingest semen and that all men have “eaten the penis”. Boys  even seek out their favorite bachelors by openly stimulating their genitalia.

Other tribes conducting the same practices include the; Etoro, Onabasulu, Kaluli and Gururumba, of the New Guinea highlands (Greer, 2003, The Boy, p.30).

A young Sambian man

http://www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/~lchang/material/Evolutionary/evo%20homosexual%20review.pdf

http://lrivera0327.tripod.com/

http://www.bukisa.com/articles/431918_ritualized-homosexuality-by-the-melanesian#ixzz1j7Wv4E7M

Like anywhere, Fiji uses the uniqueness of its culture to entertain visitors, who are entranced with kava (traditional narcotic drink), mekes (traditional dances), and lovo (earth oven / meal cooked in an earth oven). Unlike a lot of other tourist spots, Fijians seem much more engaged with these traditions and truly use them and live them in their lives. It’s not just a show.

Kava is a drink pounded from a root, by hand. In the early evening of our second day, driving down the highway in Fiji, we passed groups of young men, standing around a small barrel with a long metal or wooden stick, banging away. At first, we had no idea what they were doing. But now I know — banging kava. The pounded root, once it reaches a powder, is mixed with water in a kava bowl. In the evening, groups gather, sitting cross-legged on a woven mat on the floor, drinking kava from a polished coconut shell, singing songs and listening to a guitar. Kava is served first to the oldest man, who claps once and says “bula” (meaning welcome, hello, and sort of a general good wishing  — used in more circumstances in Fiji than any word in English). He then takes his bowl and drinks it all in one gulp. He returns the bowl, claps three times, and says “mutha” (no idea on the spelling, sounds rather like mother / mutha – meaning empty).

Our first time drinking kava we were surprised by the tongue numbing sensation and frankly, not surprised by the dirty water taste (it rather looks like dirty water). Fijians polish it off like candy, but most tourists quickly learned to ask for a “low tide” (very small bowl) instead of a “high tide” or a “tsunami” (big, full bowls). Sarah took to kava more than almost any other tourists we saw, but Tommy and I could never fully embrace the kava. It’s a pleasant experience, sitting and singing, but give me a glass of wine anytime.

We were told that traditionally the young virgins of the village chewed the root and spit it out instead of mixing it with water straight away. The young men did the initial pounding, but you had to be 35 to drink it, so the pounders didn’t get to participate in the consumption. Women never drank kava. Today, things are more democratic, although the men still seem to far outdrink the women. Each village has its own traditions about when another round is served and who can ask for it, how to mix it, and so on.

Today you can buy pre-pounded kava in the markets, although we still saw people pounding it themselves. Having had it both ways, the flavor is stronger and spicier (hints of cinnamon) when it’s fresh. I heard it was illegal in the US (I have not verified this) because of its narcotic properties, but I think it’s actually very mild (none of us ever really felt any narcotic effects).

I was lucky enough to see two different mekes. The traditional Fijian meke (dance) is a fierce, war-like affair danced with spears and machetes. The men stomp, leap, charge, and yell, giving me the impression that a Fijian warrior would not be someone to tangle with lightly. In classic Fijian style, we saw the meke danced at our “resort” on Taveuni, by the uncle and cousins of our divemaster. Everyone in Fiji is related within a region, it seems.

Friendly warriors, I think.

The other style of meke I saw was actually Polynesian, as opposed to Melanesian. I never knew this — another example of how little I knew about the world before I left home — but the South Pacific is populated by two different ethnic groups: Polynesians and Melanesians. Hawai’ians are Polynesian, and Fijians are Melanesian. Each group has similar cultural threads; the mekes of Polynesians have certain hallmarks, as do the mekes of Melanesians.

Tuvalu (Polynesian) ran out of space in the early 20th century and worked out a deal with Fiji to send some Tuvalu people to live on an island in Fiji. They would become Fijian citizens, but they could maintain their Polynesian Tuvalu traditions. Thirty nine volunteers came in the first group to settle on a foreign island in Fiji. This island was only a twenty minute boat ride away from our resort in Taveuni. Because two of the residents of the island work at the resort, they invite tourists to come and see a meke on their island, in Polynesian style.

It was incredibly different from the Fijian meke – joyful and gentle where the Fijian had been bold and fierce. We sat in the long meeting hall and enjoyed the dance and the powerful drums, beaten in what looked like a trance by some of the men. The women and men did the same dance, each with a different style, and everyone (about 75 people) sang. We learned that many of the songs reference specific events to this group, such as the original number who came over from Tuvalu, or the date they arrived. We even got to dance along, probably looking like fools but smiling from ear to ear.

Smiling at the meke...in a beautiful flower headdress.

We asked the people if they identified with Fiji or with Tuvalu; they insisted they were Fijian. I was fascinated by this small group of people maintaining their traditional culture, although it evolves to reflect recent history (such as a song about arriving in Fiji), while living so close (only a few miles) from a very different culture.

Maybe the best part of Fijian culture we got to experience was the lovo, the meal cooked in an earth oven. For special events and celebrations (or tourists who want to see one!), Fijians prepare a lovo. They start by digging a small hole and filling it with wood, then piling rocks on top. They build a fire and let it burn for a couple of hours, to heat the rocks. When the rocks are hot, they prepare the food — anything you can cook can go in a lovo, including fish, chicken, whole pigs (!), taro, sweet potato, taro leaves wrapped in coconut (amazing), and more.

Braiding the fish and whole chickens for the lovo - quickly.

We watched the guys braid the meat and fish into leaves with great dexterity. The food is then placed on the hot rocks, and more coconut leaves are piled on top. Then palm leaves are piled on, further sealing the heat in. Traditionally, giant elephant ears are added as the third layer, with rocks to hold them down and create even more of a seal. When the elephant ears are singed, they know the lovo is ready. Unfortunately, on the island we were on, there were no elephant ears, so they used a big blue tarp (not as charming).

Everything ready to cook on the hot rocks. The small sticks prevent the food from sticking to the rocks.

This is a small lovo - for a big celebration, it might be several yards across. Ours only fed abou 20 people.

We headed off for our evening sundowners, kava, and singing. In about an hour and a half, it was ready. The guys unburied everything and the kitchen served it up for us on plates, like the Westerners we are. The meal was delicious; the coconut leaves imbued a light, toasty sweetness to everything. The taro leaves were the best part, soaked and cooked in coconut milk in a fire, they were sweet and delicious and spinachy, all at the same time.

Lovo - ready to serve. Yum!

Related articles

• AWPA: Time to rethink ties with Kopassus. (westpapuamedia.info)
• West Papua Report July 2011 (westpapuamedia.info)
• The determination of West Papua’s future (westpapuamedia.info)
• Third Grand Papua Congress to be held this year (westpapuamedia.info)

Did this Melanesian get the blonde hair from the Denisovian side of the family?

There isn’t much time left before the big day!  Yep, before you know it, the Republicans will have full control of the House.  What, you thought I was talking about Christmas.

Here’s a frightening cautionary tale: The town of Pritchard in Alabama was warned for years that it wasn’t setting enough money aside to pay for pensions.  Right on schedule, the pension money ran out in 2009 and the town stopped sending checks to its retired public servants.  Some of them have since died destitute.  Others have had to file for bankruptcy.  This is what you get when you don’t fulfill your obligations to the employees who deferred some of their compensation for their retirement.  And Congress has no excuse in the future to say, “Oh, we didn’t know.  who could have predicted that not raising taxes on the wealthy would result in a shortfall in Social Security when we decided to cut everyone a 2% break on their payroll taxes in 2010?”  From the NYTimes article on Pritchard:

It is not just the pensioners who suffer when a pension fund runs dry. If a city tried to follow the law and pay its pensioners with money from its annual operating budget, it would probably have to adopt large tax increases, or make huge service cuts, to come up with the money.

We all know what’s coming because this president and his cowardly Congressional Democrats didn’t have the balls to challenge Republicans when they had a chance.  Instead of throwing the drowning Republicans an anchor, they’ve thrown them a cruise ship and their own private island.  Thanks for the coal, Dems.

Speaking of Christmas, you’ll have to put down another place setting for the newest relative on the evolutionary family tree. It turns out that one of our long lost cousins, the Denisovians, was discovered in a cave in Siberia. We’re only distantly related.  The Denisovians left traces of their presence in the Melanesians of the South Pacific and New Guinea where as much as 4% of their DNA can still be found among the island populations.  The Denisovians are from the Neanderthal side of the family.  Really, they’re more like in-laws.  Fascinating.  We’ll have to see what those 4% residual genes are good for.

Ross Douthat, true believer is feeling repressed:

The first is “American Grace,” co-written by Harvard’s Robert Putnam (of “Bowling Alone” fame) and Notre Dame’s David Campbell, which examines the role that religion plays in binding up the nation’s social fabric. Over all, they argue, our society reaps enormous benefits from religious engagement, while suffering from few of the potential downsides. Widespread churchgoing seems to make Americans more altruistic and more engaged with their communities, more likely to volunteer and more inclined to give to secular and religious charities. Yet at the same time, thanks to Americans’ ever-increasing tolerance, we’ve been spared the kind of sectarian conflict that often accompanies religious zeal.

But for Christians, this sunny story has a dark side. Religious faith looks more socially beneficial to America than ever, but the institutional Christianity that’s historically generated most of those benefits seems to be gradually losing its appeal.

{{Snort!}}  Yes, all that sunshine must be positively blinding to the millions of child brides around the world who are benefitting from our Christian brothers who are withholding aid because they may get information about abortion in their health care services.  Peace on earth, good will to men!

By the way, Ross, that altruistic spirit of churchgoers is beaten to a pulp by the Atheists on the Kiva site where the non-believers out raise the Christians by a HUGE margin.  So, you don’t have to go to church to feel empathy for your fellow man or woman.  In fact, it looks like not going to church may lead to a more generous spirit.  But I guess if you have a column in the NYTimes, you can say whatever you like.  It doesn’t have to be true.

Ross continues:

Thanks in part to this bunker mentality, American Christianity has become what Hunter calls a “weak culture” — one that mobilizes but doesn’t convert, alienates rather than seduces, and looks backward toward a lost past instead of forward to a vibrant future. In spite of their numerical strength and reserves of social capital, he argues, the Christian churches are mainly influential only in the “peripheral areas” of our common life. In the commanding heights of culture, Christianity punches way below its weight.

Is he serious???  Where was Ross when Catholic bishops forced American women into Catholicism during last year’s healthcare reform debate?  If that wasn’t the single most successful example of conversion, I don’t know what was.

But it turns out that Ross is partially right.  The number of people rejecting creationism is creeping up.  It must give the fundagelical holdouts the willies.  Soon, in maybe a century or so, we Darwinists will win out and those true believers will be forced to add the Denisovians to their prayer lists.  Bwahahahahah!!!

Actually, if anyone has a right to feel repressed at Christmas time, it’s not the Christians.  It’s people like me.  My ancestors in the British Isles looked forward to the solstices to mark the passage of time and to honor their dead.  To my people 6000 years ago, the winter solstice must have been a frightening thing.  The sun goes south, the days shorten, the nights lengthen, it’s cold, nothing grows.  Oh, sure, the sun always comes back but what if it doesn’t this time?  The return of the sun on the days following solstice must have been a joyous occasion marked with feasting on the past harvest, lighting of fires and gathering up as much greenery as possible.  It was a simple time back then.  No crass commercialism.  No materialism.  And then the Christians co-opt Saturnalia and force everyone to go to church.  They’ve got some nerve.

If the Christians were really playing Christmas straight, they wouldn’t be celebrating in December.  We know that the New Testament writers fudged the nativity story to make the dates fit.  Jesus wasn’t born in December.  And from what I’ve read, he probably wasn’t crucified on Easter either.  All that Hosanna stuff and palm waving when Jesus rode to Jerusalem on the donkey was associated with Sukkot, a Jewish holiday celebrated in autumn.  So, why don’t the Christians come clean about Christmas?  They don’t have any special claim to the dates.  Late December is recognized by many faiths from around the world going back millenia.  It’s a time to gather together, keep warm, enjoy the glow of the fire, taste the fullness of fat on your tongue, the last you might have for months to come, and to await the return of the warmth of the sun on the land and in ourselves.

Jesus would approve.

(photo, courtesty of sailblogs) Mother's Day is held the first Sunday in June in French Polynesia. Rose Corser, an ex-pat who firsts sailed to these islands in the early 1970's to work on her dissertation on Marquisan art and who subsequently permanently settled here in 1979, hosted a pig roast at her restaurant and provided entertainment in the form of traditional dancing and music by a local group.

The magestic beauty of these mysetrious people may just be closer to home than we thought.  This ethnic race is mostly populated along the South Pacific, the Hawaiian islands, Australia, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands.

The Man Behind the Ancestry:

Jonathan S. Friedlaender, professor emeritus of anthropology at Temple University, conducted a study, “Genetic Structure of Pacific Islanders,” is published in the January issue of PLoS Genetics came to a finding thanks to a diverse range of great help, including: the researchers from Temple, University of Maryland, Yale, Binghamton University, the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation, Victoria University in New Zealand, Mackay Memorial Hospital in Taiwan, and the Institute for Medical Research in Papua New Guinea.  The research analyzed more than 800 genetic markers (highly informative microsatellites) in nearly 1,000 individuals from 41 Pacific populations, as opposed to prior small-scale mitochondrial DNA or Y chromosome studies, raised many eyebrows.

This mysterious race populated in the New World, estimating “50,000 and 30,000 years ago, when Neanderthals were still conquering Europe,” says Friedlaender,  the study’s lead author.

He goes on to add, “Over the last 20 years there have been many hypotheses concerning where the ancestors of the Polynesians came from in Asia, how long it took them to develop their special seafaring abilities in Island Melanesia, and how much they interacted with the native Melanesian peoples there before they commenced their remarkable Diaspora across the unexplored islands in the Pacific.”

“Our genetic analysis establishes that the Polynesians’ and Micronesians’ closest relationships are to Taiwan Aborigines and East Asians,” says the author,  “… Some groups in Island Melanesia who speak languages related to Polynesian, called Austronesian or Oceanic languages, do show a small Polynesian genetic contribution, but it is very minor – never more than 20%.

“There clearly was a lot of cultural and language influence that occurred, but the amount of genetic exchange between the groups was remarkably low,” he says.  “From the genetic perspective, if the ancestral train from the Taiwan vicinity to Polynesia wasn’t an express, very few passengers climbed aboard or got off along the way.”

Jonathan Friedlaender, Ph.D. (Emeritus) of Temple University

Diverting from folklore (Polynesians originated from a mythical homeland called Hawaiki), there are in total, three theories (or hypothesis): First is, ‘fast train hypothesis,’ supported by the mitochondrial evidence that ancestors originated from Taiwan, having migrated through Indonesia to Island Melanesia, before their last recorded inhabitance in the unknown islands of the Pacific, without significant contact with the Island Melanesians; second is reffered to as the ‘slow boat hypothesis,’ stating that the Y chromosome evidence suggesting that the [Polynesian] ancestors derived from early Melanesians, with limited to very little Asian or Taiwanese influence; and the third and final, called the “entangled bank hypothesis,” reports the ancient migrations, not accurately reconstructed in the method of visualizing through the genetics of today’s populations, in context of the available archaeological evidences.

(Please refer to, “genetic signspots.”  )

(The project was possible and due in thanks in part by the National Geographic Society‘s Committee for Research and Exploration generous funding.)

To contact Friedlaender…

To visit Friedlaender’s website…

The Linguistic Evidence:

The Polynesian languages are part of a larger group of languages called the Austronesian family.  The indigenous languages of Taiwan are also members of this family.  The bulk of them however form a group called the Formosan languages which have very little in common with languages spoken anywhere outside of Taiwan.

Throughout Polynesia there was a belief in a mythical homeland called Hawaiki.  This name crops up in various forms, Hawai’i, Savai’i, Tahiti.  It is still possible that Taiwan is yet influence on this place name.

As yet we have been unable to track down very much about the languages.  But we have come across the Yami phrase for “the heavens” – “mata-no-angit” which translates as “eyes of the firmament“.  The Samoan word for eyes is ‘mata‘ and for sky ‘lagi‘.

Paul J. K. Li of Academia Sinica and author of “Formosan vs. non-Formosan features in some Austronesian languages in Taiwan,” provides numbers of the Yami and Atayal languages:

Yami (Imorod dialect) : 1 asa, 2 dowa, 3 a-tlo, 4 apat, 5 lima, 6 anem, 7 pito, 8 wawo, 9 siam, 10 poho

Atayal (Mayrinax dialect): 1 qutux, 2 rusa’, 3 tuu’, 4 sepat, 5 ima-gal, 6 ma-tuu’, 7 pitu’, 8 ma-spat, 9 ma-qisu’, 10 ma-galpug

1 asa, 2 rowa/dowa, 3 atlo, 4 apat, 5 lima, 8 wawo, 9 siyam, 10 amnateng

The problem in looking at the languages is that they have changed significantly, and may at certain distant future, disappear.  In a region with no record of written languages until the arrival of the Europeans makes it difficult to determine a specified time period which particular language it wass derived from.

(Please refer to Li’s writing of “Formosan languages” and “Most Endangered Formosan Languages.”)

(Photo, courtesy of Science Daily and Public Library of Science / PLoS Biology) Ancient mitochondrial DNA from these nine indigenous Taiwanese tribes provided clues about the movement of these people throughout Polynesia.

**Quoting from physorg.com is a strong recommendation which I emplore all to take a moment to read,

Jean Treajut of the Mackay Memorial Hospital in Taipei and his colleagues analyzed mitochondrial DNA from indigenous Taiwanese, mainland Chinese, Polynesians and other southeast Asian peoples.  He found the Taiwanese, Melanesians and Polynesians share three mutations, indicating a close relationship, that are absent from mainland populations.

Polynesian legends say that the people came from a mythical place called Hawaiki. The Polynesians spread across the Pacific, ranging from New Zealand to Easter Island and Hawaii, and their origin has been debated for centuries.

Genetic analysis showed the Taiwanese appear to have been isolated from mainland Chinese for 10,000 to 20,000 years, confirming archaeological evidence Taiwan has been inhabited for a long time.

The study was published in the journal Public Library of Science Biology.

Findings in Archaeology:

(Photo, courtesy of Prof. Jonathan S. Friedlaender) A Lau blonde girl from Malaita, the largest island in the Solomons, which is part of Melanesia.

Archaeologist Patrick Kirch, of the University of California, Berkely, commented in a National Geographic review, “It’s what you’d expect over a long time period like that.

“You see the same complexity in languages. New Guinea alone has something like 900 languages in its interior. That’s probably the highest density of language differential per square mile in the world.”

Previous studies of genetics, pottery styles, and the shared family of Austronesian languages suggested that the Lapita’s most likely origin was Taiwan and East Asia.

Dr. Spencer Wells leads the Five Year Epic Genographic Project sponsored by National Geographic and IBM.

Geneticist, scientist, author, and documentary filmmaker, Spencer Wells is a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence and director of the society’s Genographic Project.  Wells thinks that the genetic data may show that Polynesians and Micronesians are a mix of Taiwanese aborigines, East Asians, and Melanesians, “I certainly don’t think the data refute a slow-boat model.”

He pointed out that the mitochondrial DNA evidence—which is passed down from females (X-chromosome)—tends to support the express-train theory.  But the Y-chromosome, or male, evidence supports a slow-boat process…  This “suggests something interesting is going on, perhaps with different male and female migration patterns, which we see in other regions of the world,” he said.

(Spencer Wells has dedicated much of his career to studying our family tree and origin, in closing the gaps in our knowledge of human migration.  Wells is Project Director of the multi-year Genographic Project, a project consisting of the use of DNA samples in tracing human migration from Africa over 60,000 years ago, a discovery that has broken grounds all over the world.)

(Please refer to “Future Migration Matterns” by Spencer Wells, documented May 2008.)

(Photo, courtesy of The Scribe, April 2007) In 2003, archaeologists working in the Pacific islands of Vanuatu located the region’s oldest cemetery, which contained a rather surprising sight: although the bodies had been carefully placed in their graves 3,000 years ago… The skulls of 70 people were missing!

In Schock and Awe:

Archaeologists, in research on the island of Vanuatu, discovered the region’s oldest cemetery…  And it’s filled with mounds of headless bodies.

The Vanuatu burials of mismatching bodies and mis-arranged heads are discovered to have been originated from different corners of the Pacific Islands, said dig leader Matthew Spriggs, archaeologist with the Australian National University.

Heads removed after death: A grand total of 70 bodies with only 7 skulls along with a range of rare pots, were discovered from the site over several, tiring digging seasons.  The work was led by Spriggs, Stuart Bedford of the Australian National University and Ralph Regenvanu of the Vanuatu National Museum.

Thirty-five bodies, buried in various manners, were discovered recently, but not in a manner of ritual sacrifice as one would conclude to explain the disemembered bodies.  The deceased were all laid in formal burial, initially with their skulls firmly attached, Spriggs said.

“The head was believed to be the seat of the soul and so was often dug up after burial when the flesh had rotted away and kept either in skull shrines or in the house as a treasured memento of the person,” he told LiveScience (by Imaginova – Constantly Curious, a leading digital media and commerce company with award-winning, original content in all things Science and Discovery).

“Some curated heads, shiny through handling, had been placed on the chest of one individual some time after his burial–they may have been his descendants,” said Spriggs.  “Needless to say, he had no head either.”

(Test revealed: none of the skulls belonged to the bodies with which they were buried.)

MAP and Discovery:

The controversial Chinese map argued, by some, to be from 1418. (Photo creditited: 1421.tv)

The Chinese voyage to America theory was popularized by British amateur historian, Gavin Menzies in his 2002 published book, “1421: The Year China Discovered America.”  The controversial theory claims that Chinese admiral, Zheng He (Cheng Ho) reached the shores of the Americas over 70 years prior to Christopher Columbus’ maiden “discovery.”

Upon reading “1421,” Chinese lawyer, *Liu Ganng, foresaw potential significance in the map purchased, intentionally as a private collection.  Dated 1418, depicting outlines of North and South America, the map was used to support Menzies’ theory, if proved legitimate.

Geoff Wade, Senior Researcher of the University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute, echoed her thoughts.  In an exerpt to a group of maritime scholars, he wrote “The map is an 18th-century copy of a European map, as evidenced by the two hemispheres depicted, the continents shown and the non-maritime detailed [sic] depicted.”

In the other camp, Menzies wass strongly leaning in the support of Liu and the 1418 map.  His reason being, through a forwarded email, “every continent, ocean, land, island, river shown on the 1418 map also appears on other Chinese maps of the same date or earlier.  There is nothing new on the 1418 map—it simply combines everything on one sheet of paper.”

Menzies debates, “In 1419, European voyages of exploration had not started.  If the 1418 map is a forgery, then the 1419 map must be as well.  How do you forge something yet to be discovered.”

(Please refer to: 1412 bunkum.)

(Please see related, The Map That Changed The World: “Thinkers in the early 1800s disagreed over the age of the Earth, with some standing by Bible-based estimates of 6,000 years old.”)

As Captain James Cook was conducting his voyages of exploration and discovery, Polynesian navigators had already successfully explored and settled the islands from New Zealand to Hawaii. Remarkably, the Polynesians had developed a sophisticated and reliable means of wayfinding based not on science and mathematics, but rather on their innate knowledge of the seas and sky.

Discovery: In an exploration and a quest for discovery, a picture is emerging of the development of a seafaring culture oriented toward oceanic migration.  In 1500 B.C.E., voyagers moved east, first along the Solomon Island chain, followed by the Banks and Vanuatu Archipelagos.  Oceanic colonizers created double-hulled vessels and as the voyages lengthened, the colonists developed a navigation system (astronomical observations, the ocean swells, flight patterns of local birds) to help navigate the ocean waters.  Sailing out of South-East Asia and having developed a portable agricultural system, they were able to obtain and transfer domesticated plants and animals onto the discovered lands.

Archaeological evidence indicates that they sailed Eastward and colonized the Northern islands of Hawai’i, the Easter Island (South-East), and New Zealand (South-West), and finally concluded their settlement around 1000 A.D.E., in what we recognize today as the Polynesian Triangle.

(An average sized canoe 50 to 60 feet long could easily accomodate two dozen migrants, their food supplies, livestock, and planting materials.)

No Bones About It:

Recently discovered bones, not of humans, but CHICKENS!  The findings, along the coast of Chile have been dated prior to Columbus’ “discovery” of America, the chickens’ DNA matched fowls breeds of Polynesia. This finding dates the Polynesian contact with the Americas, over a century before the arrival of the Spainairds.

(Photo, courtesy of LiveScience, credited to Daniel Quiroz) El Arenal artifacts.

Anthropologist, Lisa Matisoo-Smith, University of Auckland, New Zealand explains, “Chickens could not have gotten to South America on their own-they had to be taken by humans.

“The chicken DNA suggests at least one group did make the harrowing journey across the remaining stretch of Pacific.  We cannot say exactly which island the voyage came from.  The DNA sequence is found in chickens from Tonga, Samoa, Niue, Easter Island and Hawaii.”

In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl, the famous Norwegian anthropologist, proved that a voyage designating from Peru to Polynesia, with only a raft (Kon-Tiki), was possible. The discovery explains the possibilites of the Easter Island like similarities of its statues with Andean sculptures.

How did the ancient Polynesians manage to settle islands of the Pacific – which makes-up to 1/3 of our earth’s surface…  Within only 1,000 years?

60 years ago Thor Heyerdahl tried to show with his Kon-Tiki expedition that the ancient Polynesians could have sailed from South America on Balsa rafts. His book and film about the expedition were sensational, but it was later found, that the Polynesians did not come from South America.

Today we know that these skilled seafarers came from Asia, from Taiwan.

There is a misconception in some quarters about the definition of the words Austronesian and Australoid (or Australian), chiefly that they are synonymous and interchangeable or that they are related to each other. In actuality, they are both distinct words.

So, to start off, their definitions:

Austronesian: of, relating to, or constituting a family of languages spoken in the area extending from Madagascar eastward through the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago to Hawaii and Easter Island and including practically all the native languages of the Pacific islands with the exception of the Australian and Papuan languages. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).

Australoid: of or relating to a racial group including the Australian aborigines and other peoples of southern Asia and Pacific islands (Merriam-Webster Dictionary; there wasn’t a Britannica entry for Australoid).

Etymologically, term ‘Austronesian’ would translate into south island [adjective/noun], from austro- (south) nes (island) -ian (suffix forming an adjective or noun). Meanwhile, ‘Australoid’ would translate into southern, from Austra(lia)- (south) -oid (suffix forming an adjective). Australoid is essentially synonymous with Australian (Australia is ‘south continent/land’), but is used to distinguish a ‘racial’ categorization from the nationality (which is primarily ‘racially’ Caucasoid). It is also used for people with physical traits similar to that of Australian Aborigines.

As words, Austronesian is no more related to Australoid than South Korea is related to South Carolina or South Africa being related to South Island (New Zealand). They both contain ‘austr,’ which is ‘south.’ They share this with Austria (‘south country’), Austro-Asiatic (‘south Asian’), among other words.

Confusion arises due to the belief by some that Austronesians and Australoid peoples are of the same ‘race.’ While this will be elaborated soon, it should be pointed out that the origin of the Austronesian ethnicities are traced to the island of Taiwan, while Australian Aborigines are from Australia. The proto-Austronesians are considered to have their origin in what is now the South Chinese mainland, and the civilization is noted for the cultivation of rice and taro, the domestication of pigs, dogs, and chickens, the making of pottery and textiles, along with their considerable seafaring capabilities with their outrigger canoes and navigation by stars. In contrast, the Australian Aborigines were a ‘landlubbing’ people until the arrival of Europeans in Australia.

The misunderstanding is compounded by many Austronesian peoples having either Melanesian or Melanesoid blood. Melanesians have physical characteristics that (to at least Western eyes) tend to look similar to Australian Aborigines. It should be pointed out though, that the evidence seems to show that the colonization of Australia was a one-way process. That is, highly dark skinned people with tightly curly hair colonized Australia from Asia, but the dark skinned, tightly curly haired people who make up a minority in countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia are not the descendants of Australian Aborigines. Orang Aslia/Aeta/Negrito type peoples and Australian Aborigines are considered to have been separated millennia ago, as the end of the Ice Age caused land bridges to become submerged. This division of peoples is comparable to that of Europeans, Africans, Asians, and Amerindians. The island of New Guinea also separated from Australia a few millennia ago, as did Tasmania.

It is quite conceivable that the average Malay has a small trace of Orang Asli/Aeta blood, while Polynesians have Melanesian (New Guinean) genes–and Malagasy in Madagascar have plenty of African genes. (It should be pointed out, that Yamada Japanese probably have far more Ainu–often considered Australoid–blood in their veins than Malays have a Negrito contribution to their gene pool). However, the typical Malay is still overwhelmingly closer genetically to Asian ‘races’ such as the Chinese or Vietnamese than they are to Orang Asli/Aetas. Malays in the Philippines, Malaysia, and western Indonesia would not have Melanesian blood. Neither Malays, Polynesians, nor Malagasy would be any more of Australian Aboriginal descent than Nordics or Mayans.

In conclusion, the confusion between ‘Austronesian’ and ‘Australoid’ arises primarily due to the semantic similarity between these uncommon, infrequently-used terms, along with bigotry which suggests a (apparently unflattering) genetic link between Australian Aborigines and Malayo-Polynesians.

Neither Austronesians nor Australoids nor any human ‘race’ in the human race deserves that.

History: The Roadmap to the Future–Asia.