{"id":907,"date":"2004-06-08T03:06:33","date_gmt":"2004-06-08T03:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/?p=907"},"modified":"2011-05-01T18:32:59","modified_gmt":"2011-05-01T23:32:59","slug":"anthropology-rats-help-track-human-migration-patterns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/?p=907","title":{"rendered":"anthropology: rats help track human migration patterns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Thanks to genetic analysis and the rat-eating  habits of ancient Polynesians, researchers are determining the routes  prehistoric humans used to colonize the Western Pacific. The Pacific rat  (<em>Rattus exulans<\/em>) is believed to have been a food source for the Lapita,  a seafaring culture that existed about 3500 years ago and thought to be  the ancestors of Polynesians and other Pacific islanders. In this  week&#8217;s <em>Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences Online Early  Edition,<\/em> E. Matisoo-Smith and J. H. Robins of New Zealand&#8217;s University  of Auckland note that since the rat does not swim, the only way it could  have reached any of the islands was by human canoe, and therefore an  analysis of the rat&#8217;s DNA could shed light on the origins of both the  Polynesians and the Lapita peoples. The researchers compared  mitochondrial DNA taken from ancient skeletal remains and modern rats  found in the Pacific and Island Southeast Asia. Their results suggest a  slower and more complicated pattern of human migration than previously  proposed. The researchers write, &#8220;Integrating these results with those  from other fields such as archeology, comparative linguistics, and  molecular biology of human populations will be the only way we can fully  understand the complex prehistory of this region.&#8221; <\/span><\/p>\n<h6><em>This news brief appeared in the Discoveries column of the <\/em>Boston Globe&#8217;s<em> Health\/Science section on 6\/08\/2004.<\/em><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to genetic analysis and the rat-eating habits of ancient Polynesians, researchers are determining the routes prehistoric humans used to colonize the Western Pacific. The Pacific rat (Rattus exulans) is believed to have been a food source for the Lapita, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/?p=907\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boston-globe-3","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=907"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1048,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions\/1048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}