Unraveling the Genetic Heritage of the CHamorus | Discovering Our Lineage

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Timestamp
0:00 – Introduction
0:16 - Ancestry of modern CHamorus
1:40 - mtDNA of modern CHamorus
3:28 - Limitation of DNA studies of modern CHamorus
3:59 - Ancient DNA study of CHamorus
7:13 - Conclusion

References
Blust, R. (2000). Chamorro historical phonology. Oceanic Linguistics, 83-122.

Hung, H. C., Carson, M. T., Bellwood, P., Campos, F. Z., Piper, P. J., Dizon, E., ... & Chi, Z. (2011). The first settlement of Remote Oceania: the Philippines to the Marianas. Antiquity, 85(329), 909-926.

Ko, A. M. S., Chen, C. Y., Fu, Q., Delfin, F., Li, M., Chiu, H. L., ... & Ko, Y. C. (2014). Early Austronesians: into and out of Taiwan. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 94(3), 426-436.

Liu, Y. C., Hunter-Anderson, R., Cheronet, O., Eakin, J., Camacho, F., Pietrusewsky, M., ... & Reich, D. (2022). Ancient DNA reveals five streams of migration into Micronesia and matrilocality in early Pacific seafarers. Science, 377(6601), 72-79.

Lum, J. K, & Cann, R. L. (2000). mtDNA lineage analyses: origins and migrations of Micronesians and Polynesians. American Journal of Physical Anthropology: The Official Publication of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 113(2), 151-168.

Lum, J. K., & Cann, R. L. (1998). mtDNA and language support a common origin of Micronesians and Polynesians in Island Southeast Asia. American Journal of Physical Anthropology: The Official Publication of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 105(2), 109-119.

Lynch, D., Wanglund, C., Spathis, R., Chan, C. W., Reiff, D. M., Lum, J. K., & Garruto, R. M. (2008). The contribution of mitochondrial dysfunction to a gene–environment model of Guamanian ALS and PD. Mitochondrion, 8(2), 109-116.

Pugach, I., Hübner, A., Hung, H. C., Meyer, M., Carson, M. T., & Stoneking, M. (2021). Ancient DNA from Guam and the peopling of the Pacific. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(1), e2022112118.

Reiff, D. M., Spathis, R., Chan, C. W., Vilar, M. G., Sankaranarayanan, K., Lynch, D., ... & Garruto, R. M. (2011). Inherited and somatic mitochondrial DNA mutations in Guam amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and parkinsonism-dementia. Neurological Sciences, 32, 883-892.

Vilar, M. G., Chan, C. W., Santos, D. R., Lynch, D., Spathis, R., Garruto, R. M., & Lum, J. K. (2013). The origins and genetic distinctiveness of the Chamorros of the Marianas Islands: An mtDNA perspective. American Journal of Human Biology, 25(1), 116-122.

[ArchaeologyStudio]

Wow, you are sharing so many excellent videos lately!!! Your channel is one fire ❤‍🔥, meaning in a good way for internet performance. I like how you mentioned all of the published sources, and people can access online for all of the details and supporting documentation.

[rtvitko]

Great video. The genetic traces along the path taken by ancestors to settle the Marianas will yield interesting stories. Thanks for sharing. Perhaps in the future you could further explore the various genetic admixture events and the clues that drive current hypotheses regarding ancestry of Chamorro people.
Comparing them to Palauan, Carolinian, Yapese and other Micronesians would be interesting. Please keep up the great work.

[anthonyp.]

Great video again, thank you. However, just a slightly alternative point about pedagogy that I'd like to raise: a number of lines of evidence have increasingly honed in on the Philippines as the primary dispersal point of Austronesian speakers. " Out-of-Taiwan", while of course the best explanation for the homeland of the Formosan-speaking Austronesians, is a somewhat misleading or inaccurate way to characterize the Malayo-Polynesian dispersal. Here's a snippet of one recent archaeogenetic study I remember which demonstrates this perspective: "The ancestors of Cordillerans diverged from indigenous peoples of Taiwan at least 8, 000 y ago... where some of their descendants remain to be the least admixed East Asian groups carrying an ancestry shared by all Austronesian-speaking populations. These observations contradict an exclusive 'out-of--Taiwan' model of farming–language–people dispersal within the last four millennia for the Philippines and Island Southeast Asia." - Larena et al. (2021) [Multiple migrations to the Philippines during the last 50, 000 years]. This extends even further the previous estimation of an around 700 y pause Proto-Malayo-Polynesian speakers spent in the Philippines while they developed the Malayo-Polynesian branch of languages, as well as more complex material culture associated with boat-making (Dizon, 2019), afterwards settling everywhere else in relatively rapid succession. Also, the numerous Formosan Austronesian groups display remarkable genetic, cultural, and linguistic diversity, with the majority of them being only distantly related in these ways to the Malayo-Polynesian groups. There are in fact deeper splits between Formosan languages, which are only spoken in Taiwan, than there are between even the most distant Malayo-Polynesian languages, which as we know constitute all Austronesian languages outside Taiwan. This is a nuance that is almost always neglected, but is gradually influencing the latest scholarly analyses of the expansion of Malayo-Polynesian speakers and Lapita. Dr. Patrick Wyman on his podcast "Tides of History" goes more in-depth about why it's technically much more accurate to frame the Philippines as something like the 'Malayo-Polynesian dispersal point', rather than Taiwan as the starting point of the seafarers we speak of in most of these discussions (ep: The Austronesian Expansion Part 2).

Anyway, I'm so glad you're spreading the recent research of Austronesian peoples on the same channel in which you discuss neocolonialism. I hope each video stokes a greater public sentiment for the crucial study and preservation of all indigenous Austronesian heritages.

[davidtaitingfong]

Adei Pulan, sumén tinane' hao! Mama'títinas hao meggai na video 👏 sigi mo'na che'lu

[-DtimeCosmology]

Fascinating topic.
Would like to visit one day.
I'm soooo far away.
I admire Oceania.

[rikdeconinck]

Hey, do be careful with older studies (like the 2013 one), as archeogenetic studies have the tendency to get outdated quite fast. Austronesia is an interesting region to study, but it does have it's limits: large amounts of samples are needed for a proper study (sample size is a problem in Oceania), but because of small populations, recently 'unrelated' people are harder to find and skeletons don't preserve particularly well in the tropics either. Most charts we see on Oceania are based on rather limited samples, so the percentages in the pie charts and tables might be off.

[Youdontneedtoknowboy]

Awesome video, been trying to explain this to relatives but now they can just watch a better explanation. 👌🏾👌🏾

[paiwanhan]

Great video as usual. Prehistoric Taiwan had plenty of megalith structures, as well as being one of the earliest rice cultivating cultures, even spreading rice related Austronesian vocabularies from Japan to the rest of SEA. If prehistorical jade ware made with jade from Eastern Taiwan, which were also found in the Philippines and Vietnam, is ever discovered in Guam, I guess that would be the icing on the cake.

[markv]

The C mutation is philippine derived. Not present in taiwanese populations but present in philippine populations. Thats why the map shows the branching off from luzon and not directly from taiwan

[weifan]

The earliest individual carrying mitochondrial haplogroup E is the 8, 300 year old Liangdao 1 sample found on the Mazu Island just off the coast of Fujian in Southeast China. The ultimate homeland of Proto-Austronesian or Austro-Tai was likely somewhere around Fujian or Guangdong in Southeast China.

[benrayphand]

whats with the hands? lol Great video though. Thanks for sharing.

[tomgorden]

What theory did you use this time. One can only imagine.

[johnfraser]

This is very interesting. I lived on Saipan for ten years and enjoyed examining the latte sites and pottery shards around the island. Regarding ancestry, I think people are too concerned with where they come from. For me, ancestry means nothing at all and it's only one's actions during their lifetime that determine someone's worth.