History Forum / General / Archaeology / November 2007

In response to your vilifying wrath;

The only "Mystery" is, where does Marsh come up with this stuff?

This is the kind of sh.t people like you slung at Thor Heyerdahl when
he was alive.
If you can't criticise the info then criticise the man.

For those of you asking for some hard evidence, with regard to my
assertions, here are some REFERENCED quotes from scientists that have
led me to the conclusions that I have come to in my website;
Polynesian Pathways
at; www.polynesian-prehistory.com

It is unfortunate that I quoted a weblink that was from Nexus, I was
merely pointing out that I am not the only one who has noticed a
behaviour in scientists that appears to be driven by an egotistical
protection of their own (and their mates) publications, rather than a
sefless search for the truth.

The following quoted extracts will hopefully have enough reference
information for you to source the original copy to prove that I am not
bullshitting.

Furthermore I respect the work of these scientists.

Read the following and draw your own conclusions.

An archaeology of West Polynesian prehistory by Anita Smith
Pandanus Books, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Australian National University Canberra 2002

"Although ceramics have been used as the primary material culture
correlate for cultural change in West Polynesia, they are perhaps
least suited to identifying Ancestral Polynesians in the
archaeological record. .Ceramics were not manufactured by Polynesian
societies at any time in East Polynesian prehistory. Therefore trying
to connect Lapita and plainware pottery with Polynesians is
illogical."
When comparing Lapita with plainware ceramics in Polynesia: - "There
do not appear to be new or different kinds of evidence associated with
plainware ceramics, only the disappearance of a minor component of
material culture and faunal assemblages is apparent. There is
continuity in most aspects of the archaeological record that appears
to mimic post Lapita sequences of Fiji and island Melanesia."
Therefore plainware appears to be a simplification of the Lapita
cultural complex caused by isolation.
Plainware pottery is found on many Polynesian islands and was thought
to be a significant player in the transformation of Lapita society
into a Polynesian cultural complex. Unfortunately "no classical
Polynesian artifacts have been found within this plainware
assemblage".

Archaeological evidence indicates that plainware pottery ceases
abruptly in Samoa around 0BC, being replaced by classic Polynesian
cultural complex. This clearly indicates a change in ownership of the
islands, from the waning Lapita settlers to a culture that used
gourds, 2 piece fishhooks, lures, harpoons, tanged adzes, polished
phallic, vaginal and stirrup stone grinders, none of which were
produced by Lapita people or Melanesians.

The Lapita cultural complex - origins, distribution, contemporaries
and successors by Matthew Spriggs in Out of Asia: Peopling of the
Americas and the Pacific edited by R. Kirk and E. Szathmary pp.
185-206. Journal of Pacific History, Canberra 1985

"The earliest Lapita pottery found to date is from Elouae in the St
Matthais Group, north of New Ireland . The date of 1900 BC (3,900
years ago), comes from a single hearth feature associated with Lapita
materials. The Elouae site contained obsidian both from the
Admiralties 300 km to the east, and Talasea 430km to the south.
Requiring a significant sea voyage."
This indicates that not only had the Lapita potters become competent
sailors, but they were clearly connected to the Melanesian obsidian
traders.

"The possibility of cultural continuity between Lapita Potters and
Melanesians has not been given the consideration it deserves. In most
sites there was an overlap of styles with no stratigraphic separation
discernible Continuity is found in pottery temper, importation of
obsidian and in non ceramic artefacts".
"The earliest reliable dates for Lapita outside the Bismarks all occur
later than 1500 BC, With most Lapita sites in Vanuatu and the Solomons
having a date around 900 BC, With production ceasing around 0BC.
Contemporary with the final phases of Lapita and continuing long
afterwards in some areas we find the incised and relief pottery or
Mangaasi style widespread in Melanesia. In Watom, Mangaasi pottery is
found with lapita pottery, made from the same clay and dating to 420
BC".

An early chronology of the Hawaiian Island s by Terry L. Hunt and
Robert M. Holsen
Asian Perspectives 29(3):147-161. 1991

"In Fiji about 0 BC there is a change from Lapitoid plain ware to
paddle impressed ceramics of the Navatu phase". On   the basis of his
analysis of the Yanuca site, he argues for " continuity in western
Fiji between Lapita and the subsequent Navatu phase ."

Terry L. Hunt and Robert M. Holsen in "An Early Radiocarbon Chronology
for the Hawaiian Islands" States: " . . The corpus of radiocarbon
dates available to date may be suggestive of colonisation of the
Hawaiian Islands significantly earlier than has been generally
accepted. Many archaeologists have shifted their estimate for Hawaiian
settlement to approximately AD 300 - 400, and some recognised the
potential for even earlier dates. One particular date (Gak-258 on
charcoal) falls within the first millennium BC. Another date (Grn-2225
on charcoal) ranges from AD 127 -249 (range with highest probability),
and might represent the age of initial occupation of the site (Kirch
1985)."

The Colonization of the Pacific - A Genetic Trail   Edited by Adrian
Hill and S.W. Serjeantson 1989 pp 135,162-163,166-7 Oxford University
Press 1989

SW Serjeantson comments; "It seems quite implausible that a group
supposedly evolving within Melanesia could have acquired, by chance,
so many non-Melanesian genes!"

"The following genes set them apart: Polynesians lack HLA-B27 ,
wheras it is common amongst Melanesians.
HLA-Bw48 is commonly found in Polynesian populations, but occurs only
sporadically in Melanesia. The only other known population with an
appreciable frequency of   HLA-Bw48 is that of the North American
Indians or more specifically the Tlingit. In Polynesia Bw48 co-occurs
with A11, - suggesting a variation since Polynesians departed from the
Canadian coast.
Polynesians have had little contact with Micronesians. There are only
a limited number of similarities in the HLA system. It is clear that
Micronesia has had an independent source of HLA genes, probably from
the Phillipines, as indicated by the high frequency of HLA-Bw35 which
is absent from Melanesian and Polynesian groups.
HLA-B13, B18 and B27 are found throughout Melanesia. These antigens
are sporadic in Western Polynesia and are essentially absent from the
populations of Eastern Polynesia. The few sporadic occurrences are
attributable to recent foreign admixture. These antigens are also
rarely found in Micronesia.
HLA-A11 and B40 are significantly associated with each other in
Melanesia, but are not linked in Polynesian Populations, indicating a
different source of origin, possibly Caucasian.
HLA data cannot support the theory of Polynesian evolution within
Melanesia.
Gene frequency distributions, as well as linkage relationships,
clearly place Maoris of New Zealand in the Eastern Polynesian branch,
together with Hawaiians and Easter Islanders. The HLA-A-B linkage
relationships seen in Hawaiians are present also in Maoris and are
consistent with a split in these populations 1,000 years ago.

(For the HLA sceptics, this HLA derived information agrees with the
following more recent work.)

Melanesian origin of Polynesian Y chromosomes . by Manfred Kayser,
Silke Brauer, Gunter Weiss, Peter A. Underhill, Lutz Roewer, Wulf
Schiefenh?vel and Mark Stoneking Current Biology Oct 2000

"The time back to the most recent common ancestor of all 75
individuals carrying the DYS390.3 deletion on the RPS4Y711T chromosome
background was estimated to be 11,500 years.  A signal of slight
population growth dating back to the start of a population expansion
~6,000 years ago was detected. When the analysis was restricted to
Polynesians, a much stronger
signal of population growth was detected, indicating a population
expansion starting about 2,200 years ago.
Haplotype diversity and the mean number of pairwise differences were
higher in Melanesia than in Polynesia or Indonesia and a coalescence-
based approach indicated that the deletion arose about 11,500 years
ago.
These results therefore indicate that the major Y-chromosome haplotype
in Polynesians originated in Melanesia 11,500 years ago.

The diversity associated with DYS390.3del/RPS4Y711T haplotype suggests
a Melanesian origin, and the date for the origin of this haplotype  of
11,500 years, substantially predates any other evidence for human
occupation of Polynesia.
Bing Su et al, University of Texas , found no evidence for a
Melanesian origin of Polynesian Y chromosomes, because their major
Melanesian Y-chromosomal haplotype H17 (characterised by mutations at
M4, M5 and M9) was not found in Polynesia. We also found this
haplotype in high frequency in Melanesia and concur that it is absent
from Polynesia;
Furthermore, the detected moderate population growth and the estimated
start of population
expansion at about 6,000 years ago is in perfect agreement with
archaeological data, which suggest that the Austronesian expansion
started about 6,000 years ago from Asia/Taiwan.Studies of the mtDNA 9
bp deletion marker, and the associated 'Polynesian' sequence motif in
hypervariable region I of the mtDNA control region, have suggested a
Taiwanese origin for Polynesian mtDNAs.

Reduced genetic diversity in Polynesians has also been reported for
many other genetic markers, indicating a Polynesian bottleneck.
Moreover, when dividing the total sample set of individuals carrying
the DYS390.3del/RPS4Y711T haplotype into Polynesians and non-
Polynesians, the population growth rate of Polynesians was estimated
to be four times larger than for non-Polynesians, with a population
expansion starting 2,200 years ago.
This is in agreement with the hypothesis of a bottleneck in the
colonisation of Polynesia, which would result in a stronger signal of
population growth coming out of the bottleneck.
A significant dispersal of Polynesian mtDNA into Melanesia also
occurred in more recent times (~1,000 years ago) leaving behind mtDNA
types with the 9 bp deletion and incorporating Melanesian mtDNA types.
This scenario is compatible with the Y chromosome results."

Katsushi Tokunaga and colleagues. 'Genetic link between Asians and
Native Americans: Evidence from HLA genes and haplotypes' in Human
Immunology 62 1001-1008 (2001).
HLA24-Cw8-B48, A24-Cw10-B60 and A24-Cw9-B61 were all commonly observed
in Taiwan indigenous populations, Tibetans, Thais, Japanese, Orochon
in North East China, Buryat, Man,Yakut, Inuit, Tlingit, Pima, Maya and
Maori.' These findings further support the hypothesis that East Asia
(Yonaguni/Taiwan area) was the dispersal point for all these cultures.
This exodus occurred 6-8,000 years ago coincides with the final rapid
rise in sealevels at the end of the Ice Age which flooded this
megalithic civilization on the island chain between Taiwan and Japan.

Theodore G Schurr and colleagues(1990) 'Both the North American Pima
and the Central American Maya have high frequencies of the
Mitochondrial DNA sequence variation containing the rare Asian RFLP
Hine II morph 6 in conjunction with an Asian-specific 9 based pair
deletion.' It appears that both the Pima and the Maya are genetically
very close to the Polynesians. The arrival of these genes in America
is believed to have been between 6-8,000 years ago, ruling out the
possibility of Polynesian origins as Polynesians have only been in the
Pacific for 2,200 years.

Ancient Polynesian Society by Irving Goldman, University of Chicago
Press 1970
Irving Goldman  has this to say on the comparison between Kwakuitl and
the Polynesians. "For reasons that remain to be discovered, the Indian
tribes of this area [NW Coast] share formal principles of rank,
lineage, and kinship with Pacific islanders. The Kwakiutl, seem very
close to what I have designated as the "traditional" Polynesian
society. They share with Polynesians a status system of graded
hereditary ranking of individuals and of lineages; a social class
system of chiefs ("nobles"), commoners, and slaves; concepts of
primogeniture and seniority of descent lines; a concept of abstract
supernatural powers as special attributes of chiefs; and a lineage
system that leans toward patriliny, but acknowledges the maternal
lines as well. Finally, Kwakiutl and eastern Polynesians, especially,
associate ambiguity of lineage membership with "Hawaiian" type
kinship, a fully classificatory system that does not distinguish
between maternal and paternal sides, or between siblings and cousins."
This is quite a list of very specific anthropological similarities.
All this can be explained very parsimoniously by the derivation of the
Hawaiians from the Kwakiutl.

In Peter Bellwood's book Man's conquest of the Pacific, it is noted
that North American Indians from the West coast have blood groups the
same as Polynesians. It also showed blood groups between S.E. Asians,
Melanesian and Polynesians to be vastly different. This info was
discarded as it did not fit with contemporary theories, despite the
fact that this blood group information is consistent with the HLA
data, mtDNA and Y Chromozome data. (Sorry that Bellwoods info is not
properly quoted or referenced. You will just have to find this
yourself p125? - unfortunately I do not have everything at my
fingertips). I work 7 days a week to try and make ends meet (3
children) and have very little time to focus on this, but the time
will come when I WILL be able to compile my research properly.

Discredit the work from these scientists if you want, nit pick, split
hairs, argue that black is white, complain about grammatical errors
and omission of apostrophes etc, ask for my qualifications (I have
none - so what), but the above information seems to stack up against
the commonly accepted view that Lapita became Polynesian - out of
Melanesia. (Was it the slow train or the fast train?)

Regards Peter Marsh (peter panther)

(I am the kid in the holiday snaps, my mum was the photographer)
I hope that answers you questions for now.