Comments on: Bacteria and languages reveal how people spread through the Pacific

By: SeekTruthFromFacts

SeekTruthFromFacts — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:05:11 +0000

Sorry to revive this from the dead, but your hosts might like readers to note that the Diamond quotation is originally from Discover!

http://discovermagazine.com/1994/feb/howafricabecameb331/?searchterm=Austronesian

By: windy

windy — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:55:54 +0000

I think the shocking thing is not just the fact that someone made the long trip from South-East Asia, but that no one apparently made the much shorter trip from Africa!

Hm, why would you assume that? Genetically the people of Madagascar are a mixture of African and Indonesian with more or less equal contributions of each.

By: Krzysiek

Krzysiek — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:34:09 +0000

Hi, in my opinion such convergence requires one condition: the transfer of language and bacteria between two individuals should be correlated. Probably these people lived in closed, tribal communities, so the correlation was obvious; if they lived together, they shared language and bacteria; if they lived separately, they shared none of these.
But we might think about another situation: groups of people living together (so sharing bacteria), but keeping their own languages, for example in master-slave coexistence after conquerring one nation by another).
In such a case convergence will not appear.
What do you think?
- Krzysiek

By: BioinfoTools

BioinfoTools — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 06:51:06 +0000

Simon: Thanks for that, when I get time, I might look it up. Say hi to Alexei for me.
Ed: Perhaps once they’d gone that far, any kid with the bright spark of a idea of more long-distance sailing was promptly told to go a dig the next toilet pit?! (Just kidding, obviously. If they didn’t have toilet pits, hungis)

By: Simon G

Simon G — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:00:41 +0000

Bioinfotools – this paper (PDF!) by Roger Blench is a really good (if slightly old!) overview of the Austronesian settlement of Madagascar.
Ed: No worries. It’s nice to see a good write up of our work!
–Simon

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:57:20 +0000

And by the way, a massive thanks to Simon for showing up and answering questions from readers. Very rare that scientists take the time to do that, and I can only think it should be encouraged.

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:55:36 +0000

I think the shocking thing is not just the fact that someone made the long trip from South-East Asia, but that no one apparently made the much shorter trip from Africa!

By: BioinfoTools

BioinfoTools — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:50:03 +0000

Thanks for that. Just in case you think I’m being lazy for not looking it up myself, I’m madly working on a grant application that is getting knocked around by dumb software issues. (Enough said about that…)
I have to admit I’d have preferred an original source to Diamond, as I’m always a little wary of material from books taking on the large scale: it easy for the authors to wander off what they can judge well and I’ve seen it a few too many times and all that. But it seems it’s “known stuff” by the sounds of it. I have to admit that kind of canoe trip is something to think twice about. I’ve done a little off shore sailing myself, nothing terribly exciting, but enough to say that 3,700-odd km in a canoe is something else!
I wonder who the wit is that added that bit to the Diamond quote. Bizarre.
Are there any birds that migrate between Africa and Indonesia? I’m thinking along lines of a clue that “there is land over that way”. Admittedly going 3,700+ km on that basis is still a long shot, eh!

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 10:21:27 +0000

The Madagascar thing is absolutely right, and absolutely mind-boggling. This is what Jared Diamond had to say about it (taken from Wikipedia):

“These Austronesians, with their Austronesian language and modified Austronesian culture, were already established on Madagascar by the time it was first visited by Europeans, in 1500. This strikes me as the single most astonishing fact of human geography for the entire world. It’s as if Columbus, on reaching Cuba, had found it occupied by blue-eyed, blond-haired Scandinavians speaking a language close to Swedish, even though the nearby North American continent was inhabited by Native Americans speaking Amerindian languages. How on earth could prehistoric people from Borneo, presumably voyaging on boats without maps or compasses, end up in Madagascar?”

Also, have a look at the Wikipedia page while you can – some idiot’s left a hilarious fragment at the end of Diamond’s quote and inadvertently Godwinned the page.

By: Simon G

Simon G — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 04:02:27 +0000

Nick: As the Austronesians spread along the coast of New Guinea and into Near Oceania, they integrated with the existing populations there. Once they entered Polynesia (say beyond Vanuatu and Fiji) they stopped admixing. This is why the Polynesian/Micronesians look quite different to the "Melanesians" in Near Oceania, and why both of these groups look very different to those in Island South East Asia. This is discussed in our language paper, as well as in other papers focusing on the genetic evidence. BioinfoTools: Yes, the Austronesians definitely settled Madagascar, although this is quite a bit later - around 2,000 years ago. There's some information available on Wikipedia, and this is absolutely not controversial. Simon