Melanesia Population

Knauft's interests cover a broad spectrum of questions of Melanesian anthropology and he articulates himself with general questions of culture philosophy and humanities.

Autonomous Stories of Human Y Chromosomes from Melanesia and Australia

In order to study the origin and relationship of Australia and Melanesia, 611 men from 18 population groups from Australia, Melanesia and East/Southeast Asia were typified for eight SNP and seven brief Y chromosomal polymorphisms and seven brief Y-chromosomal polymorphic replicate tandems. An unparalleled type of aaplotype, DYS390.1del/RPS4Y711T, was found with a prevalence of 53%-69% in Australia, while the most important types in Melanesic population ( (M4G/M5T/M9G and DYS390.3del/RPS4Y711T) were missing in the Australia population.

Thus, the yeasome dataset points to an autonomous story for Australians and Melanesians, a fact that is consistent with the proofs of mtDNA but contrary to some analysis of autosome loci that show a strong correlation between Austral ian and Melanesian (especially highlands Papua new Guineans) population. As Australia and New Guinea land masses were linked during the first human colonization 50,000 years ago but were severed about 8,000 years ago, one possible way to bring all genetical information together is that the results of J- chromosome and mtDNA mirror the last 8,000 years of Australia and New Guinea's separate story, while the auto-somal locales mirror the long previous periods of mutual origins and story.

There are two Y-chromosome types (M119C/M9G and M122C/M9G) originating in East/Southeast Asia on the coast and isle of Melanesia, but rarely or not found in Australia and the Papua New Guinea highlands. These distributions, together with population analysis suggesting that population growth for both types began 44,000-6,000 years ago, suggest that these types were introduced to Melanesia by Austronese growth.

The majority of the population in this trial was previously typified for the Y-type SNP; population variation is greater for the Y-type than for the mt type and is significantly related to geographical distances, which is consistent with the results of similar analysis in Europe's population.