Re: Genetic evidence.....

From: Qiwi (Lrawnsle_at_tvnz.co-dot-nz.no-spam.invalid)
Date: 08/01/04 

Date: 1 Aug 2004 11:27:59 -0500

> benlizrosswrote:
So you feel that these 50-year-old blood group studies got it right,
and
> that all subsequent genetic studies have been wrong?
> Ross Clark
Certainly the recent outrageous claims being made are laughable....
Indeed the 'orthodox' theorists are so confused now they are claiming
the ancestors of the Polynesians came from two destinations.... the
women from Taiwan and the men from the northern coast of New
Guinea...LOL...
However some of the less flakey studies are of interest.....
e.g. Hagelberg & Cleggs 1993 study into the distribution of the
distinctive 9 base pair in the mitochondrial sequence found that
prehistoric skeletons from Eastern Polynesia including Hawaii, the
Chathams, the Society Islands and New Zealand all contained this
sequence. However in skeletal material from sites in the Melanesian
archipelagos of New Britain and Vanuatu and the oldest samples from
Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa (2,700-1,600 years BP) this deletion was
completely absent....
Significantly, (and this is a clue Ross) their results showed that
this distinctive deletion didn't appear in Western Polynesia [Tonga]
until after 300ad.
Hagelberg & Clegg concluded that their results,
"fail to support current views that the Central Pacific
was settled directly by voyagers from Island South East Asia..... An
earlier occupation by peoples from the neighbouring Melanesian
archipelagos seems more likely."
DNA aside, apart from a number of incomplete skeletons & a few
post-holes very little is known about the so-called 'Lapita' people
apart from their pottery & certainly nothing that can in anyway
link them to the Polynesians....

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