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G Horvat (gisele@connect.ab.ca) wrote on Wed, 06 Jan 1999 19:52:29 GMT:
: On 6 Jan 1999 17:08:11 GMT, yuku@globalserve.net (Yuri Kuchinsky)
: wrote:

: >G Horvat (gisele@connect.ab.ca) wrote on Wed, 06 Jan 1999 06:47:42 GMT:
: >
: >: "2 1/2 million people live on the island of New Guinea.  Most of the
: >: people are Melanesians.  Some Malaysians and Polynesians live on the
: >: coast." (World Book Encyclopedia)
: >
: >Gisele,
: >
: >These Polynesians arrived to these coastal areas quite late from the East.
: >These were late arrivals who displaced some of the aboriginal Negroid
: >population who still live inland.

: If you look at the map of suggested world migrations issued from the
: Cavalli Lab, 

: http://lotka.stanford.edu/

: a path is indicated which begins in the general area of Indonesia and
: leads all the way to the west coast of America (where mtDNA similar to
: the Polynesians has been found in frequencies of up to 70%). 

Gisele,

In my view, the homeland of Austronesians was in the area of Taiwan, and
perhaps even north of there towards Japan. Japanese language in fact shows
many Austronesian affinities. The map from Cavalli shows the origin south
of Taiwan, but the precise centre of diffusion still seems to be in doubt
at this time.

: It seems
: as if other geneticists were suggesting that Polynesian mtDNA in
: eastern Indonesia and  related mtDNA found in Taiwan to Philippines
: corridor supported the contention that Polynesians originated in that
: general area and that this, therefore, agreed with linguistic
: evidence.  

Yes, in that _general area_.

: I'm trying to determine if mtDNA from later migrations is
: being construed as the earlier, and thus, considered to be genetic
: support on that basis. 

There may be some confusion here, as you indicate.

: The scientific journal, which mentioned the
: 20% Polynesian mtDNA in eastern Indonesia in its abstract, was
: entitled:

: "Polynesian genetic affinities with Southeast Asian populations
: as identified by mtDNA analysis."

: and I really don't think that the intent was to determine if later,
: known, migrations occurred.  

Precisely.

: Can you tell me how you know that this
: western Polynesian migration was "quite late"?

See the Chapter POLYNESIANS REACHED MELANESIA FROM THE EAST (p. 52ff) in
AMERICAN INDIANS IN THE PACIFIC. There Heyerdahl cites Buck (1938), who
was a supporter of mainstream view that Polynesians came from the West.
But he had to admit that the evidence points otherwise in this particular
case.

"That intermixture took place between the Melanesians and Polynesians may
also be admitted, but it appears that this mixture was due to a later
westward movement of Polynesians from Tonga and Samoa rather than to
contact with Melanesians by the original Polynesian migrants of their way
through Melanesian islands." (p. 52)

Also other sources are cited to this effect, including linguistic. 

And Ross Clark basically said the same thing re linguistic evidence
recently.

: In another scientific journal, it is stated that South American, Papua
: New Guinean and Pacific types (just called "Indonesian, Asian,
: Samoan") were placed together on the same branch of the phylogenetic
: tree:

: "Interestingly, the South American lineage I, Papua New Guinea
: coastal, and Pacific types are in an exclusive group having no
: substitution sites in common with the other types in the network
: except for sites 16184 and 16189, which, as has been contended above,
: are sites that have mutated independently in many populations and that
: therefore are treated last in the network."

Note "Papua New Guinea coastal" above. These are those late Polynesian
arrivals that I mentioned.

: [Mitochondrial Control-Region Sequence Variation in Aboriginal
: Australians 
: Sheila M. van Holst Pellekaan,1 Marianne Frommer,1 John A. Sved,1
: and Barry Boettcher2]

: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/journal/issues/v62n2/970354/970354.html

: and, therefore, I wonder which coastal New Guineans are being referred
: to whose HVS-I sequences were found to be similar to South Americans
: harboring Haplotype B (as indicated by Table 3) but did not really
: have sequences in common with Australians. 

Yes, the late Polynesian arrivals to the coastal New Guinea.

Regards,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky -=O=- http://www.globalserve.net/~yuku

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, 
it is time to reform  -=O=-  Mark Twain