ORCID Profile
0000-0001-5041-5106
Current Organisation
The University of Auckland
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Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 30-03-2022
DOI: 10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0265224
Abstract: Knowledge of bio ersity in the past, and the timing, nature, and drivers of human-induced ecological change, is important for gaining deep time perspectives and for modern conservation efforts. The Marquesas Islands (Polynesia) are one of the world’s most remote archipelagos and illustrate the vulnerability of indigenous bioscapes to anthropogenic activities. Characterised by high levels of endemism across many biotic groups, the full spectrum of the group’s flora and fauna is nonetheless incompletely known. Several centuries of Polynesian settlement reshaped biotic communities in ways that are not yet fully understood, and historically-introduced mammalian herbivores have devastated the indigenous lowland flora. We report here on archaeological recovery of a erse assemblage of plant and arthropod subfossils from a waterlogged deposit on the largest Marquesan island: Nuku Hiva. These materials offer new perspectives on the composition of lowland plant and arthropod communities pene-contemporaneous with human arrival. Bayesian analysis of multiple 14 C results from short-lived materials date the assemblages to the mid-12 th century AD ( 1129–1212 cal . AD , 95.4% HPD). Evidence for human activities in the catchment coincident with deposit formation includes Polynesian associated arthropods, microcharcoal, and an adzed timber. Plant macrofossils (seeds, fruits, vegetative structures) and microfossils (pollen, phytoliths) reveal coastal and lowland wet-moist forest communities unlike those observed today. Several apparently extinct taxa are identified, along with extant taxa currently constrained to high altitude and/or interior areas. A erse inventory of subfossil arthropods—the first pre-18 th century records for the islands—includes more than 100 distinct taxa, with several new archipelago records and one previously unreported for eastern Polynesia. The assemblages provide new insights into lowland Marquesan forest communities coincident with human arrival, and portend the considerable anthropogenic transformations that followed. These records also have implications for human colonisation of the Marquesas Islands and East Polynesia at large.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 13-11-2017
DOI: 10.1002/ARCO.5139
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 07-2016
DOI: 10.1002/ARCO.5102
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2014
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 14-06-2018
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-018-27363-8
Abstract: Archaeological evidence suggests that dogs were introduced to the islands of Oceania via Island Southeast Asia around 3,300 years ago, and reached the eastern islands of Polynesia by the fourteenth century AD. This dispersal is intimately tied to human expansion, but the involvement of dogs in Pacific migrations is not well understood. Our analyses of seven new complete ancient mitogenomes and five partial mtDNA sequences from archaeological dog specimens from Mainland and Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific suggests at least three dog dispersal events into the region, in addition to the introduction of dingoes to Australia. We see an early introduction of dogs to Island Southeast Asia, which does not appear to extend into the islands of Oceania. A shared haplogroup identified between Iron Age Taiwanese dogs, terminal-Lapita and post-Lapita dogs suggests that at least one dog lineage was introduced to Near Oceania by or as the result of interactions with Austronesian language speakers associated with the Lapita Cultural Complex. We did not find any evidence that these dogs were successfully transported beyond New Guinea. Finally, we identify a widespread dog clade found across the Pacific, including the islands of Polynesia, which likely suggests a post-Lapita dog introduction from southern Island Southeast Asia.
No related grants have been discovered for Melinda S. Allen.