Assessing Human Genome-wide Variation in the Massim Region of Papua New Guinea and Implications for the Kula Trading Tradition.

ABSTRACT: The Massim, a cultural region that includes the southeastern tip of mainland Papua New Guinea (PNG) and nearby PNG offshore islands, is renowned for a trading network called Kula, in which different valuable items circulate in different directions among some of the islands. Although the Massim has been a focus of anthropological investigation since the pioneering work of Malinowski in 1922, the genetic background of its inhabitants remains relatively unexplored. To characterize the Massim genomically, we generated genome-wide SNP data from 192 individuals from 15 groups spanning the entire region. Analyzing these together with comparative data, we found that all Massim individuals have variable Papuan-related (indigenous) and Austronesian-related (arriving ∼3,000 years ago) ancestries. Ind

SUBMITTER: Liu D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9372566 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature