Abstract
Humans introduced paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) from Taiwan into the Pacific over 5000 years ago as a fiber source to make barkcloth textiles that were, and still are, important cultural artifacts throughout the Pacific. We have used B. papyrifera, a species closely associated to humans, as a proxy to understand the human settlement of the Pacific Islands. We report the first genetic analysis of paper mulberry textiles from historical and archaeological contexts (200 to 50 years before present) and compare our results with genetic data obtained from contemporary and herbarium paper mulberry samples. Following stringent ancient DNA protocols, we extracted DNA from 13 barkcloth textiles. We confirmed that the fiber source is paper mulberry in nine of the 13 textiles studied using the nuclear ITS-1 marker and by statistical estimates. We detected high genetic diversity in historical Pacific paper mulberry barkcloth with a set of ten microsatellites, showing new alleles and specific genetic patterns. These genetic signatures allow tracing connections to plants from the Asian homeland, Near and Remote Oceania, establishing links not observed previously (using the same genetic tools) in extant plants or herbaria samples. These results show that historic barkcloth textiles are cultural materials amenable to genetic analysis to reveal human history and that these artifacts may harbor evidence of greater genetic diversity in Pacific B. papyrifera in the past.
Highlights
The reconstruction of the dispersal history of human population in the Pacific has been advanced using the commensal approach
Seelenfreund et al [20] described and genetically characterized these samples using the ITS-1 region. This barkcloth was made of paper mulberry as identified by the ITS-1 marker and presented a double-peak signal at the polymorphic site 203, with the characteristic T variant found in paper mulberry from Remote Oceania samples, as well as the common G variant of Asian plants
In this study we report the results of the genetic analysis of historical barkcloth textiles from museum collections and from an archeological context
Summary
The reconstruction of the dispersal history of human population in the Pacific has been advanced using the commensal approach. We characterize the genetic makeup of 13 barkcloth textiles from different locations (Rapa Nui, Hawaii, New Guinea, Fiji, American Samoa and Gambier Is.) in order to answer three central questions of curators, Pacific researchers and the Pacific communities at large: 1) Which plant species were used as source of fiber? Due to their great cultural significance and the traditional practice of keeping and handing down tapa textiles for generations, and their presence in museum collections around the world, they represent a novel and relevant source of DNA to investigate the genetic diversity and dispersal of this plant in the Pacific. Barkcloth textiles may be available from islands where the plant has disappeared and where herbarium records are absent, as in the case of the Gambier Islands
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