Origins of the Island Melanesians

这项研究使用遗传变异来追踪居住在太平洋岛屿上的人们的起源，这些岛屿从新几内亚东南扩散到近和远的大洋洲。通过使用人类线粒体DNA基因组的高分辨率数据，将这些岛屿和新几内亚的土著居民与波利尼西亚、密克罗尼西亚、印度尼西亚、东南亚和西南亚的周围人口进行比较和对比。通过这些比较，可以建立这些地区人民之间的联系，并确定每个人口的起源。这项研究特别旨在调查语言和遗传变异之间的联系。虽然语言和DNA在物理上没有联系，但它们确实存在于同一个人身上，语言无疑在获得配偶方面起着一定的作用。因此，研究人员将调查那些被归为更高阶语系的语言（如南岛语和巴布亚语）是否与太平洋及周边地区个体的遗传分组一致。这种方法可以推广到地球上的任何地方，也可以推广到语言以外的其他行为，甚至可以推广到其他物种。本研究利用先前收集的样本，由研究者和合作者收集，并通过收集更长的DNA序列大大提高了遗传分辨率水平。这项研究汇集了语言、文化、地理、生物和基因数据，构建了美拉尼西亚最初和后来的人群的图景，并确定了这些不同人群的起源。这项工作还召集了一个由十几名太平洋专家组成的小组，分析结果并构建种群遗传模型。本科生和研究生将直接参与数据收集和数据分析，延续梅里韦瑟实验室让本科生直接参与分子人类学研究的悠久传统。

This research uses genetic variation to trace the origins of the peoples residing in the Pacific Islands that spread southeast from New Guinea into near and remote Oceania. By using high-resolution data from the human mitochondrial DNA genome, the natives of these Islands and of New Guinea will be compared and contrasted with the surrounding populations in Polynesia, Micronesia, Indonesia, Southeast and Southwest Asia. Through these comparisons, links between the peoples of these regions can be established and the origins of each population can be ascertained. This research is particularly aimed at investigating the links between language and genetic variation. While language and DNA are not physically linked together, they do reside in the same individual, and language undoubtedly plays some role in mate acquisition. Therefore, the researchers will investigate whether languages that are grouped together into higher order language families (e.g. Austronesian and Papuan) coincide with genetic groupings of individuals in the Pacific and the surrounding areas. This approach can be extended to any part of the planet, and to other behaviors besides language, and indeed to other species. This study makes use of previously collected samples, collected by the investigator and collaborators, and greatly increases the level of genetic resolution through collection of significantly longer DNA sequences. The research brings together linguistic, cultural, geographic, biological and genetic data to construct a picture of the initial and subsequent peoplings of Melanesia, and to determine the origins of these diverse populations. This work also brings together a team of a dozen experts on the Pacific to analyze the results and construct the population genetic models. Undergraduate and graduate students will be directly involved in the data collection and analysis of the data, continuing a long tradition in the Merriwether lab of involving undergraduates directly in molecular anthropological research.