Tracking Human Dispersals to Palau Using Ancient DNA: Results from the Chelechol ra Orrak Site

Summary

This is an abstract from the "When the Wild Winds Blow: Micronesia Colonization in Pacific Context" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Initial settlement of Remote Oceania represents the world’s last major wave of human dispersal. While transdisciplinary models involving linguistic, archaeological, and biological data have been utilized in the Pacific to develop basic chronologies and trajectories of initial settlement, a number of elusive gaps remain in our understanding of the region’s colonization history. This is especially true in Micronesia, where a paucity of human skeletal material dating to the earliest periods of settlement have hindered biological contributions to dispersal models. The Chelechol ra Orrak site in Palau contains the oldest known human remains in Micronesia (3000–1800 cal BP), and therefore provides an excellent opportunity for direct study of initial population dispersals into the region via ancient DNA (aDNA). Here, we present results from research involving the recovery of aDNA along with new radiocarbon dates from individuals interred at the site. A combination of targeted sequencing of the mitochondrial control region and hybridization capture of full mitochondrial genomes has yielded evidence of haplotypes consistent with Island Southeast Asian origins and population affinities. Together, current results demonstrate genetic distinctiveness between other ancient Pacific Island and modern Palauan data but still support archaeological and linguistic models suggestive of an Island Southeast Asian origin.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• When the Wild Winds Blow: Micronesia Colonization in Pacific Context   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33334