The Great Paper Mulberry — A Botanist’s pursuit of Pacific Anthropology
Kuo-Fang Chung, Research Museum and Herbarium (HAST), Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, Sep 5th @ UTC 14:00 - 15:00

The settlement of Pacific islands by Austronesian-speaking peoples (hereafter Austronesians) concludes the last stage of Neolithic human expansion. Prior to European colonial expansions, the ca. 1250 Austronesian languages were the most widely spoken linguistic family, ranging from Madagascar to Easter Island from west to east and Taiwan to New Zealand from north to south. Recent archaeological, linguistic, and human genomic data of ancient DNA increasingly favor the “Out of Taiwan” hypothesis for Austronesian dispersal. However, this “farming language dispersal hypothesis” still lacks genetic supports of commensal crops and/or domesticated animals that were transported by Austronesian ancestors from East Asia into Oceanic islands. Paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera), a fibrous, dioecious, and weedy tree species native to China, Taiwan, and Indochina, was recorded in oral histories to be introduced and clonally propagated across Oceanic islands by Austronesian ancestors for making bark cloth, an iconic and highly symbolic object of Austronesian material culture, representing an ideal commensal species to test hypotheses of Austronesian expansion and migration. Based on genetic and genomic data, we demonstrate that Pacific paper mulberry used for making tapa is predominately female and was originated from Taiwan, suggesting its anthropogenic introduction from Taiwan. Dated phylogenetic analyses using whole chloroplast genome sequences indicate a chronology of ancient introduction from Taiwan eastward into the Remote Oceanic islands highly congruent with the anthropological model, providing so far the most convincing ethnobotanical support for the “Out of Taiwan” and “farming language dispersal” hypotheses of Austronesian expansion and migration.

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有「構」厲害─植物學家的人類學之旅
鍾國芳 中央研究院生物多樣性研究中心
9/05 UTC @ 14:00- 15:00 (台灣晚上十點）

講南島語的人們（以下稱南島人）在太平洋島嶼上的定居結束了新石器時代人類擴張的最後階段。在歐洲殖民地擴張之前， 1250種南斯拉夫語是最廣泛使用的語言族，從馬達加斯加到復活節島，從西到東，從台灣到新西蘭，從北到南。最近有關古代DNA的考古學，語言學和人類基因組學數據越來越多地支持南島人散佈的“台灣以外”假說。但是，這種「農業語言傳播假說」仍然缺乏由南島祖先從東亞運送到大洋洲的共生作物和/或家養動物的遺傳學支持。紙桑（Broussonetia papyrifera）是一種原產於中國，台灣和印度支那的纖維狀，雌雄異株和雜草的樹種，被記錄在口述歷史中，由南極洲的祖先引入並克隆繁殖到大洋島嶼上，以製作樹皮，標誌性和南極物質文化的高度象徵性對象，代表了一種理想的共生物種，可以檢驗南極擴張和遷移的假設。根據遺傳和基因組數據，我們證明用於製作西班牙小吃的太平洋紙桑樹主要是雌性，起源於台灣，表明它是人為引入台灣的。使用完整的葉綠體基因組序列進行的最新系統發育分析表明，從台灣向東遠古到遠洋島嶼的古代引進年代學與人類學模型高度一致，為“台灣以外”和“農業語言傳播”提供了迄今為止最令人信服的民族植物學支持。南極擴張和遷移的假說。（建議進入演講前可以先預讀一下這個連結）