Post by Tamrin on Oct 4, 2008 15:48:54 GMT 10
Did the ancestors of the Maori men and women come from different places?
For the last 50 years, debate has raged over where the Maori of New Zealand people originally came from. Some say Taiwan others Indonesia. Now, their search for an answer has led to a startling finding, the men and women appear to have come from different places.
Adele Whyte is the part Maori micro biologist who used mitochondrial DNA samples to trace her peoples origins back as far as mainland Asia. But the big question was where in Asia? The mitochondrial DNA couldn’t say. The answer came from a surprising quarter – by looking at the gene for alcohol.
Adele’s supervisor, Dr Geoff Chambers found a match between one of the same variant genes for alcohol with people from Taiwan. So it seemed the original homeland of the Polynesian people was in fact Taiwan. Or was it?
When Geoff’s team decided to study the male y chromosome, they got a shock, because it told a completely different story. While the female line is entirely Asian, most of the males came from Melanesia. In fact the men appear to come from PNG, and the women are from Taiwan. So now he believes he finally has the story that makes sense of all the different pieces.
For the last 50 years, debate has raged over where the Maori of New Zealand people originally came from. Some say Taiwan others Indonesia. Now, their search for an answer has led to a startling finding, the men and women appear to have come from different places.
Adele Whyte is the part Maori micro biologist who used mitochondrial DNA samples to trace her peoples origins back as far as mainland Asia. But the big question was where in Asia? The mitochondrial DNA couldn’t say. The answer came from a surprising quarter – by looking at the gene for alcohol.
Adele’s supervisor, Dr Geoff Chambers found a match between one of the same variant genes for alcohol with people from Taiwan. So it seemed the original homeland of the Polynesian people was in fact Taiwan. Or was it?
When Geoff’s team decided to study the male y chromosome, they got a shock, because it told a completely different story. While the female line is entirely Asian, most of the males came from Melanesia. In fact the men appear to come from PNG, and the women are from Taiwan. So now he believes he finally has the story that makes sense of all the different pieces.
