Gut Bacteria, Language Analysis Solve Pacific Migration Mystery - Wired Science

7/23/2019 Gut Bacteria, Language Analysis Solve Pacific Migration Mystery - Wired Science

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2013/10/30 12:33Gut Bacteria, Language Analysis Solve Pacific Migration Mystery - Wired Science

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Gut Bacteria, Language Analysis SolvePacific Migration MysteryBy Brandon Keim01.22.0912:52 PM

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Bytracking the evolution of language and gut bacteria, scientists may have settled a debate overthe spread of humans across the Pacific.The evolutionary trajectory implied by words and bugs begins with an initial migration fromTaiwan 5,000 years ago, with a first wave of people spreading to the Philippines and a second towestern Polynesia.The findings, writes University of Cambridge archaeologist Colin Renfrew, "mark a substantialadvance in our understanding of human population history" and they involve some cutting-edge archaeological sleuthing to boot.Physical remains, rather than linguistic patterns and microbes, are the preferred form of evidencefor human migratory maps. Population genetics has also proved useful, with the progressivedifferencesbetween modern and ancient DNA samples forming a biological tapestry of humanhistory. But archaeologists attempting to understand the settlement of far-flung Pacific islandshave been stymied by a lack of hard evidence, and genetic studies have proven inconclusive.Asa result, some historians concluded that settlement occurred gradually, over the last 30,000years, by descendants of an initial population from inland southeast Asia the so-called "slowboat from Wallacea" theory. Others hypothesized a recent, Taiwan-based origin.In the latest analyses, published Thursday inScience, researchers abandoned traditional tools in

favor of languages andHeliobacter pylori, a microbe that has co-evolved with humans for at least50,000 years.Bacterial samples taken from modern aborigines in Taiwan, Australia, Melanesia, Polynesia and

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New Guinea reveal a common, 5,000-year-old Taiwanese ancestor, which varied as humanpopulations took their stomach bugs to the Philippines 3,000 years ago and then, severalhundred years after that, to Western Polynesia and New Zealand.A separate analysis of of 210 core vocabulary words in 400 Pacific-region languages produced anevolutionary tree of culture rather than organisms and its branches followed with themigratory routes suggested byH. pyloris locale-specific evolution.

"The use of modern genetic data to reconstruct phylogenetic trees shows that the past is stillwithin us today," wrote Renfrew in a review of the studies. "Our past is within us in a differentsense when the vocabularies of specific modern languages are the basis for historical analysis.And the past is within us in a very literal way when the early history of humankind isreconstructed based on the bacterial flora in our guts."

Citations: "Language Phylogenies Reveal Expansion Pulses and Pauses in Pacific Settlement."By R. D. Gray, J. Drummond and S. J. Greenhill. Science, Vol. 323 Iss. 5913, Jan. 22, 2009."The Peopling of the Pacific from a Bacterial Perspective." By Yoshan Moodley, Bodo Linz,Yoshio Yamaoka, Helen M. Windsor, Sebastien Breurec, Jeng-Yih Wu, Ayas Maady, Steffie

Bernhft, Jean-Michel Thiberge, Suparat Phuanukoonnon, Gangolf Jobb, Peter Siba, David Y.Graham, Barry J. Marshall, Mark Achtman. Science, Vol. 323 Iss. 5913, Jan. 22, 2009."Where Bacteria and Languages Concur." By Colin Renfrew. Science, Vol. 323 Iss. 5913, Jan.22, 2009.

Images: 1. Flickr/SF Brit. 2. AAAS/Science. On top: Distribution of H. pylori populations inAsia and the Pacific, color-coded by type. Below: The different Austronesian languages,correlated with the H. pylori status of their speakers.See Also:Researchers Synthesize Evolution of Language

Evolution of Language Parallels Evolution of SpeciesIf Climate Didnt Doom Neanderthals, Did Humans?Shrunken Heads Could Tell Political TaleDNA Could Illuminate Origins of Medieval ManuscriptsWiSci 2.0: Brandon Keims Twitterstream andDel.icio.usfeed; Wired Science onFacebook.RelatedYou Might LikeRelated Links by Contextly

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Brandonis a Wired Science reporter and freelance journalist. Based in Brooklyn, New York andsometimes Bangor, Maine, he's fascinated with science, culture, history and nature. (Twitter|Google+)Read more by Brandon KeimFollow @9brandonon Twitter.

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nike air jordan !

LOL! nice use of a rare Arnie quote, voodoowhammy

!

Iroabuchi Onwuka !

Genetic materials breakdown with time but the traces of DNA can give us insight into the

travelogue of a specie of Gut bacteria. We can map out the genetic history

C/C the genetic relationship between Nigerian Igbos and their Jewish counterparts

!

Chockblock !

What about south america? Kon-Tiki anybody?

!

Albert Nason !

Since the scientists are testing the MODERN populations for gut bacteria, I think the evidencefor ancient migrations is very problematical. Just as species of weeds and insects have been

spread worldwide in the "Post-Columbian Exchange" so have germs and bacteria,

sometimes resulting in epidemics but sometimes quietly replacing a native species with a

more aggressive import. On the face of it, the gut bacteria researchers seem to be claiming

that the Australoids came from Taiwan 5000 years ago while the hard evidence of bones and

cultural artifacts indicate they have been in Australia for 30,000 to 40,000 years.

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