Two groups of researchers seem to have solved the mystery of how and when the first human settlers spread out through the Pacific Islands. One group studied the evolution of a stomach bacteria while the other examined the evolution of language, but both came up with remarkably congruous results.
The evolutionary trajectory implied by words and bugs begins with an initial migration from Taiwan 5,000 years ago, with a first wave of people spreading to the Philippines and a second to western Polynesia [Wired News].
In the bacterial study, researchers took stomach samples from people native to Taiwan, Australia, Melanesia, Polynesia and New Guinea. They
measured genetic variation in Helicobacter pylori, a common gut microbe that traveled with humans when they first left Africa more than 60,000 years ago.... They found that the [bacteria] from people's guts in Polynesia and Melanesia--islands stretching from New Caledonia all the way to Samoa--were ...
