Human settlement of Oceania marked the culmination of a global colonization process that began when humans first left Africa at least 90,000 years ago. The precise origins and dispersal routes of the Austronesian peoples and the associated Lapita culture remain contentious, and numerous disparate models of dispersal (based primarily on linguistic, genetic, and archeological data) have been proposed. Here, through the use of mtDNA from 781 modern and ancient Sus specimens, we provide evidence for an early humanmediated translocation of the Sulawesi warty pig (Sus celebensis) to Flores and Timor and two later separate human-mediated dispersals of domestic pig (Sus scrofa) through Island Southeast Asia into Oceania. Of the later dispersal routes, one is unequivocally associated with the Neolithic (Lapita) and later Polynesian migrations and links modern and archeological Javan, Sumatran, Wallacean, and Oceanic pigs with mainland Southeast Asian S. scrofa. Archeological and genetic evidence shows these pigs were certainly introduced to islands east of the Wallace Line, including New Guinea, and that so-called ''wild'' pigs within this region are most likely feral descendants of domestic pigs introduced by early agriculturalists. The other later pig dispersal links mainland East Asian pigs to western Micronesia, Taiwan, and the Philippines. These results provide important data with which to test current models for human dispersal in the region.domestication ͉ mtDNA ͉ Pacific colonization ͉ phylogeography

Some Pacific island societies, such as those of Easter Island and Mangareva, inadvertently contributed to their own collapse by causing massive deforestation. Others retained forest cover and survived. How can those fateful differences be explained? Although the answers undoubtedly involve both different cultural responses of peoples and different susceptibilities of environments, how can one determine which environmental factors predispose towards deforestation and which towards replacement of native trees with useful introduced tree species? Here we code European-contact conditions and nine environmental variables for 81 sites on 69 Pacific islands from Yap in the west to Easter in the east, and from Hawaii in the north to New Zealand in the south. We thereby detect statistical decreases in deforestation and/or forest replacement with island rainfall, elevation, area, volcanic ash fallout, Asian dust transport and makatea terrain (uplifted reef), and increases with latitude, age and isolation. Comparative analyses of deforestation therefore lend themselves to much more detailed interpretations than previously possible. These results might be relevant to similar deforestation-associated collapses (for example, Fertile Crescent, Maya and Anasazi) or the lack thereof (Japan and highland New Guinea) elsewhere in the world.

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Pollen from a series of surface soil samples collected along a transect spanning southeast China was investigated to better understand palynological signals of ancient agriculture and other human activity. The transect surface samples consist of pairs taken inside and outside rice paddy fields. Pollen assemblages from these samples are valuable as modern analogs of human-altered environments and rice agriculture. Our measurements of Poaceae pollen grains from inside the modern rice fields discovered that 34–40 µm is the statistically significant size range for identifying domesticated rice in fossil pollen samples. This conclusion is also based on a size comparison of raw and chemically treated modern pollen grains from the plants. Pollen measurements for local wild grasses show that most native weeds have pollen grains less than 30 µm in size. The modern analogs and our study of the influence of chemical treatment on pollen grain size made it possible to examine a sediment core from the Pearl River delta for evidence of anthropogenic influence, including rice farming. Pollen assemblages from around 2200 cal. yr BP are highly similar to those of our modern analogs representing disturbed landscapes outside modern rice fields. The pollen spectra reveal abrupt increases in Poaceae, Dicranopteris, Artemisia and Pinus indicative of rice farming and forest clearance, at around 2200 cal. yr BP. Major factors associated with this abrupt transition were the rapid formation of the deltaic flood plain and massive increases in the Pearl River delta area population during the Qin Dynasty.

The use of adze sourcing to study interaction spheres opens new perspectives on ancient Polynesian voyaging. Our work contributes to this effort by documenting the discovery and geochemical signature of the Vitaria Adze Quarry, a major adze quarry complex in the central East Polynesia core area. We present WD-XRF geochemical data for the Vitaria raw material and ethnographically collected adzes from Raivavae and Tubuai Islands, also part of the Australs. Comparison of our results with previously published artifact and source data shows that initial tool production at the Vitaria Adze Quarry coincides with the human colonization of East Polynesia. Artifacts from Rurutu were exchanged within the Australs, as well as to neighboring archipelagoes, indicating the importance of Rurutu as a node in voyaging networks spanning the East Polynesian homeland area. Large-scale tool production at the Vitaria Adze Quarry may have contributed to the rise of Vitaria District as the seat of the paramount chief and the center of power on Rurutu. Highlights • Sourcing of stone tools illuminates ancient East Polynesian voyaging spheres. • X-ray fluorescence shows a unique chemical signature for the Vitaria Adze Quarry.