Study of early Pacific migrants could help with health history, says researcher

RNZ News

2 days ago

A 2009 excavation involving researchers from the University of Otago, at the SAC locality on Watom Island, Bismarck Archipelago, Papua New Guinea.
Photo:
Dr Rebecca Kinaston
International researchers have recovered the first ancient genomes from Papua New Guinea, which holds clues into the lives of early Pacific settlers.
The research into Pacific migration has been 20 years in the making but current technology has led to new breakthroughs.
Otago University's Dr Monica Tromp said they are able now to get really fragmented, ancient DNA from hot and humid environments like Papua New Guinea.
She told
Pacific Waves
there was little interaction between the groups of people that first settled in PNG about 50,000 years ago.
"There seems to be very distinct groups of people, as far back as we can see with these samples, that were not interacting with each other... at least not interacting with each other in a way we can see through genetics," she said.
"So people weren't intermarrying with each other. They were sticking to their to their different groups."
Photo:
Supplied
Tromp said there are a couple of places in the paper that are later in time, on PNG's south coast.
She said these two groups lived very close together at the same time, but even then, 500-600 years ago, people kept separate from each other.
"They have different burial traditions; they're eating differently; they looked different genetically, so they were still maintaining their distinct populations.
"We can see it reflected today in languages, because there's hundreds of different languages spoken just in Papua New Guinea."
She said the study of early Pacific migrants could help Pacific communities understand their health history.
"Besides just being interesting, being able to look at DNA from this far back - although it hasn't been done yet - we can try to find out other things, like where different kind of health issues may have come from... to help target treatments for people that have this kind of ancestry," she said.
"That's been done a lot in Europe and other places where they have these big data sets, but there's not a lot that has been done down in the Pacific.
"Hopefully, if more things like this can happen, it can not only help people learn more about their ancestors, but also hopefully learn about how that information can help them today."