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Field: Social Science
Session Topic:
The Evolution of Modern Humans
Speaker:
J. Koji Lum, PhD
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Biological Sciences, Laboratory of
Evolutionary Anthropology and Health, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY
13902-6000
The origin of the Lapita Cultural Complex: Analyses of mtDNA from ³long² and
³short² pigs
Abstract:
The archaeological record of the human settlement of the Pacific describes two
discreet periods of range expansion. Some of the earliest evidence of modern humans
outside of Africa is found in the Pacific dated to 60,000 years ago. By 29,000 years ago
humans had settled the intervisible islands extending from New Guinea to the central
Solomon Islands, known as Near Oceania. Approximately 3,500 years ago a second
group of settlers entered the Pacific, rapidly moved through Near Oceania, and settled
Remote Oceania, the remaining archipelagoes of the Pacific. These latter voyagers are
characterized archaeologically by a distinct material culture known as the Lapita
cultural complex that includes intricately decorated pottery and the transport of pigs,
dogs, chickens, and rats.
We recently examined a group of Remote Oceanic pigs to gain insights into the
geographic origin of the Lapita People and their cultural complex unavailable in the
human data. These data suggest that Pacific pigs were recently domesticated within
Southeast Asia rapidly selected for compact, canoe-friendly size, and then dispersed
during the human colonization of Remote Oceania associated with the Lapita cultural
complex. These Pacific pigs are most closely related to wild boars dispersed
throughout Southeast Asia, but not Taiwan. These data suggest that the Lapita
Cultural Complex may have arisen in mainland Southeast Asia and that the
currently favored hypothesis of a Taiwanese origin may be an artifact of recent
human population replacements within Southeast Asia.