Migrations most fowl : archaeological and ancient mitochondrial DNA signatures of Pacific chickens

Abstract

Archaeologists study the material remains of ancient human societies to learn about people who lived in the past. The study of commensals or organisms which moved with migrating groups of humans around the globe focuses on specific aspects of human behaviour: migration, interaction, and the dispersal of animals, plants and diseases. The settlement of the Pacific islands was achieved over 40, 000 years of human history and includes some of the earliest and latest known migrations of human populations to previously uninhabited lands. The incredible journeys, which relied on sophisticated sailing technology and transportable landscapes resulted in the colonisation of islands across a third of the globe. Sometime in the last 3, 000 years, humans introduced domestic chickens to the Pacific and carried them .from Mussau in the Bismarck Archipelago to Hawai 'i, Easter Island and even the west coast of South America. Through the study of the archaeological distribution of chicken remains and the use of ancient DNA sequencing techniques the relationships between groups of ancient chickens may be used to understand aspects of relationships between groups of prehistoric humans. The goal of this project was to evaluate ancient mtDNA data .from archaeologically associated chicken remains to reconstruct ancient human mobility. Here it is shown that the use of chickens as a proxy for ancient human behaviour reveals aspects of exploration, colonisation and complex cross cultural interactions. As part of a larger study of multiple Pacific commensals, the complexity of interactions which occurred not only between humans but also between people, animals and plants can be understood.