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来源：科学现场（Live Science）

作者：Tia Ghose
时间：2016年10月5日

翻译：Kinasa、小索

校对：Sarah

整理：聪爷

链接：http://www.livescience.com/56383-photos-of-polynesian-ancestors.html

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从瓦努阿图发掘出土的大约三千年前的头骨（如图所示）中提取到的DNA显示，第一批定居波利尼西亚的族群来自台湾或菲律宾北部。头骨放置于一只拉皮塔文化的容器内，拉皮塔文化是曾经统治整个波利尼西亚群岛的古代文化。（图片：澳大利亚国立大学提供）

一项新的基因分析认为，2300到3100年前，第一批在辽阔的太平洋岛屿——瓦努阿图群岛和汤加群岛定居下来的人类可能来自台湾或菲律宾北部。

考古学家们从瓦努阿图的两处考古遗址中发掘出了人类骸骨，从中提取出的DNA揭示了人类是如何首次涉足这片太平洋最偏远的岛屿的。

本项研究的合著者、澳大利亚国立大学的考古学家和人类学家马修·斯普里格斯（Matthew Spriggs）在声明中说：“首先，今天的瓦努阿图人是亚洲人的后裔。他们直接来自台湾、还可能是菲律宾北部这类地方。”

新的发现认为，这些人从亚洲离岸上船，渡海远航，在途中很可能绕路避开了较近的地区，例如早在至少四万年前就已有古人类定居的澳大利亚和巴布亚新几内亚等地。

斯普里格斯说：“他们经过了那些早已有人居住的地区，而当他们到达瓦努阿图时，发现这是一片无主之地时，于是就此定居下来，成为瓦努阿图的第一批居民。”

奇异之旅

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新的证据显示，这片太平洋岛屿的第一批居民来自台湾和菲律宾北部。上图标注出了不同的文化在这片地区的影响范围。（图片来源：维基共享资源（Wikimedia Commons），Kahuroa词条：VakaMoana《祖先的远航 – 太平洋的发现与殖民》，K.R. Howe出版社2008年出版，第57页。）

长期以来，征服太平洋中距离最遥远、面积最辽阔的群岛这一壮举一直被视为人类最不可思议的旅程。这片太平洋赤道地区的大小岛屿位于大洋洲的正中心，无论是远古时期的人类祖先，抑或现代的大洋洲居民，他们划动着有舷外支架的小木舟，在海上航行几千英里，依次征服着那些点缀在浩渺大海上的成千上万的大洋洲小岛。

至于他们为什么要展开这种既困难又危险的旅程，斯普里格斯在发给美国生命科学网（Live Science）的邮件中提到：“这是一个很难回答的问题，或者说实话，‘我们现在还不知道’，但是支撑他们的肯定是某种坚定的信念。”

然而，这一座座小岛是什么时候，又是被什么人征服仍旧是当下争论的热点话题。有人提出，亚洲的岛民直接跨海登上了诸如汤加等岛屿，而另一些人则认为，在抵达最终目的地之前，亚洲人的队伍在沿途逐渐吸纳了一些来自所罗门群岛、巴布亚新几内亚或澳大利亚的居民。

为了解决这个问题，斯普里格斯和他的同事们分析了提取自瓦努阿图和汤加的四具距今大约2,300年至3,100年的女性遗骨的DNA，并将之与几百名大洋洲人和东亚人的DNA进行了比对。汤加和瓦努阿图相距约1,250英里（2,000公里）。

研究团队发现，第一批汤加人（属于曾经统治过波利尼西亚大部分地区的所谓的拉皮塔文化）与当今台湾土著，如阿美族和泰雅族等，以及菲律宾的卡纳克族（Kanakey）有着共同的祖先。这一研究成果发表在十月三日星期一出版的《自然》杂志上。瓦努图发现的人骨与上述“祖先”有着相似的特点。尽管瓦努图与巴布亚新几内亚地理距离非常接近（并且许多来自瓦努阿图的人讲一种根植于巴布亚新几内亚语的语言），但是最初的定居者们却很少，甚至没有来巴布亚自新几内亚的。

混合的基因

然而，所有当代波利尼西人的身体中确实携带着美拉尼西亚人，如巴布亚人的某些基因。研究人员在成果中提到，进一步研究显示，大约在1,200年到2,000年前，巴布亚人的DNA进入了波利尼西亚人的基因库中，这说明了巴布亚人在拉皮塔文化建立之后才进入该地区，并与当地人通婚。

斯普里格斯在电子邮件中曾提到：“我们应该停止使用诸如‘美拉尼西亚人’和‘波利尼西亚人’这类不准确的名词，因为他们之间的差异仅存在于巴布亚与亚洲基因的比例由于所有的太平洋岛民都是这两个族群的融合的后代，所以我认为他们全都应该被称作帕斯菲卡人（Pasifika）（意即太平洋岛民），而不应去分辨这两者的不同之处，因为这样做毫无意义。”

    有趣的是，在今天的大洋洲，这些先驱者们的基因似乎在很大程度上是由女性传承下去的。

    本项研究成果的合著者、哈佛医学院群体遗传学家庞达斯·斯卡格伦德（Pontus Skoglund）在致美国生命科学网（Live Science）的一封电子邮件中提到，“拉皮塔文化里很可能有入赘的习俗，当一对男女结为夫妻，男方需要去往女方家中定居，因此巴布亚男人可能就此迁入了具有拉皮塔文化特征的部落之中。其次，或许在人类第二次的大洋洲迁徙之旅中，远征这片遥远海域的人群中具有巴布亚血统的人大部分是男性。”

斯卡格伦德说， 虽然骸骨出自瓦努阿图和汤加，但这项发现可能涉及到更广的地区。

他表示：“我非常期待再见到相似的模式，至少在远大洋洲的其它地区”

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另一个角度（图片：澳大利亚国立大学）

    这是从另一个角度观察瓦努阿图遗骨。

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最初的居民（图片来源：ANU）

     一具从瓦努阿图岛出土的骨骼展示了波利尼西亚最初的居民。

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今日瓦努阿图（图片：livcool / Shutterstock.com）

     两位现代瓦努阿图儿童在玩耍。瓦努阿图人被划分为美拉尼西亚人，这意味着他们的祖先与巴布亚新几内亚人是近亲。岛屿上最初的居民似乎来自台湾。

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现代汤加（图片：Don Mammoser / Shutterstock.com）

     2013年11月17日，汤加人在FuifuiMoimoi的故乡庆祝他的到来。Fuifui是橄榄球联赛的汤加国际代表。新的证据显示，汤加最初的居民来自台湾或北菲律宾。

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所罗门群岛人（图片来源：Sean Myles）

    靠近新几内亚的所罗门群岛上的人们，被认为是美拉尼西亚文化群体中的一员。然而就基因而言，他们与太平洋群岛的其他人的区别，仅仅在于其所携带的巴布亚或亚洲祖先血统的比例。

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巴布亚妇女（图片来源：Sergey Uryadnikov/Shutterstock.com）

    一位来自korowai部落的巴布亚妇女肖像。新几内亚野生丛林（New Guinea Wild Jungle），2016年5月15日。

原文：

The First People to Settle Polynesia Came from Asia

DNA extracted from roughly 3,000-year-old skull found on the island of Vanuatu (shown here) reveals that the first people to settle Polynesia came from Taiwan or northern Philippines. The skull was found inside a vessel made by the Lapita, the ancient culture that colonized all of Polynesia. Credit: ANU

The first settlers of the far-flung Pacific islands of Tonga and Vanuatu likely arrived from Taiwan and the northern Philippines between 2,300 and 3,100 years ago, a new genetic analysis suggests.

Ancient DNA extracted from skeletons at two archaeological sites on the islands helps paint this picture of how the remotest reaches of the Pacific were first colonized.

"The people of Vanuatu today are descended from Asia first of all. They were straight out of Taiwan and perhaps the northern Philippines," study co-author Matthew Spriggs, an archaeologist and anthropologist at the Australian National University, said in a statement.

The new findings suggest that on their route out of Asia, these first settlers may have bypassed closer areas, such as Australia and Papua New Guinea, which have been occupied by ancient populations for at least 40,000 years.

"They traveled past places where people were already living, but when they got to Vanuatu there was nobody there. These are the first people," Spriggs said.

Fantastic voyage

New evidence suggests the first inhabitants of the Pacific Islands came from Taiwan and the northern Philippines. Here, a map of the different culture zones present in the region. Credit: Kahuroa, Wikimedia Commons/ VakaMoana: Voyages of the Ancestors - the discovery and settlement of the Pacific, ed K.R. Howe, 2008, p57.

The peopling of the remote, far-flung islands of the Pacific has long been one of humanity's most incredible journeys. Ancient ancestors to modern-day occupants of Oceania, which centers on the islands of the tropical Pacific, paddled their way in outrigger canoes across thousands of miles of ocean dotted with thousands of tiny islands, occupying each in turn.

As for why they set out on this difficult and dangerous excursion, "that is the $64,000 question; 'we just don't know' would be the honest answer," Spriggs told Live Science in an email. "But some strong ideology must have driven them on."

Exactly who peopled each of these islands and when, however, has remained an issue of hot debate. Some argued that people from the islands of Asia went straight to islands such as Tonga, while others argue that they mixed with people from the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea or Australia before reaching their final destination.

To help settle the question, Spriggs and his colleagues analyzed DNA extracted from four female skeletons from Vanuatu and Tonga, which were about between 2,300 and 3,100 years old, and compared it to DNA from hundreds of people from Oceania, as well as from East Asia. Tonga and Vanuatu are about 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) apart.

The team found that the first Tongans, who belonged to the so-called Lapita culture that colonized much of Polynesia, shared a common ancestry with the modern-day indigenous people of Taiwan, such as the Ami and the Atayal, as well as the Kanakey of the Philippines, the researchers reported Monday (Oct. 3) in the journal Nature. Similar ancestry was found in the skeletons from Vanuatu. These first settlers had little or no ancestry originating in Papua New Guinea, even though the region is much closer geographically (and many people from Vanuatu speak a language that traces its roots to Papua New Guinea).

Genetic mix

However, all modern-day Polynesians do carry some genes inherited from Melanesians, such as the Papuans. Further analysis revealed that the Papuan DNA entered the Polynesian gene pool roughly 1,200 to 2,000 years ago, which suggests Papuans came after the Lapita culture was established and intermarried with the local population, the researchers wrote.

"We should stop using inexact terms like 'Melanesians' and 'Polynesians,' as the only difference is in percentage of Papuan as opposed to Asian genes," Spriggs wrote in the email. "As all Pacific Islanders are a mix of these two groups, I think it is better to call them all Pasifika people (Pacific Islanders) and avoid making distinctions between them that don't mean anything."

Interestingly, in modern-day Oceania, genes from these first pioneers seem to have been largely passed on through women.

"The Lapita culture was probably matrilocal, so that, when people form pairs, females stay in the group where they live but males move, so Papuan males might have come to live in Lapita-like groups," study co-author Pontus Skoglund, a population geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, told Live Science in an email. "Secondly, it might be that secondary migrations into remote Oceania carrying Papuan ancestry were mostly male."

While the skeletons were found on Vanuatu and Tonga, the findings have much broader implications, Skoglund said.

"I expect to see very much the same pattern, at least in other parts of remote Oceania," Skoglund said.

Another view. Credit: ANU

Here, another view of the Vanuatu skeleton.

First inhabitants.Credit: ANU

A skeleton unearthed on the island of Vanuatu has revealed the first inhabitants of Polynesia.

Vanuatu today.Credit: livcool / Shutterstock.com

Two modern-day children in Vanuatu play. While tpeople of Vanuatu are classified as Melanesian, meaning their ancestry is closer to people of Papua New Guinea, the first inhabitants of the island likely came from Taiwan.

Modern-day Tongans.Credit: Don Mammoser / Shutterstock.com

Here, people from Tonga celebrate arrival of FuifuiMoimoi on his home island on November 17, 2013 in Tonga. Fuifui is Tonga international representative forward in rugby league. New evidence suggests the first inhabitants of Tonga arrived from Taiwan or the northern Philippines.

Solomon Islander Credit: Sean Myles

People on the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea, are considered part of the Melanesian culture group. Genetically, however, they likely differ from other people of the Pacific Islands only in the relative percentage of Papuan or Asian ancestry they carry.

Papuan Woman.Credit: Sergey Uryadnikov / Shutterstock.com

Portrait of a papuan woman from a korowai tribe. New Guinea Wild Jungle . May 15, 2016