Miguel wrote:
> I made the remark about the *same* few boatloads because NG and
> Australia were until recently connected: the same people who settled
> Australia some 50,000 years ago were also the ones that settled New
> Guinea.
This is one of the findings of Cavalli-Sforza's work. The "Highland"
Papua New Guinean, and the Coastal folk show an enormous difference,
with the coastal people showing a distant genetic relationships with
Polynesian and Micronesians, and their relationships with the
highlanders are even more distant.
This fits well with the Austronesian nature of their languages, but
when distance is related to time, certain problems are found.
Firstly, the genetic distance from the Austronesians seems to show a
longer separation than the archaeological or linguistic evidence is
usually shown as. (i.e. 6,000-8,000 years of separation genetically
versus 3,000-5,000 years of separation linguistically and culturaly).
This has led Oppenheimer in his "Eden in the East" to propose that
Austronesian was already present in Sundaland at the time of the last
sea level rise. But there is an alternative explanation.
C-S suggests that in small populations genetic drift can accentuate
the genetic distance shown by the markers he has suggested. In cases
of hybridisation between two neighbouring but geneticaly destinct
populations can also show an increased divergence between the
resultant population and the suggested parental groups.
I would suggest that both actors have been involved in the case of
the Austronesians of Papua New Guinea.
As for the Highlanders, they show no connections with any uman
population except for Australoids of Australia, and then the disance
seems to suggest a fission at 40-50,000 years ago, which seems highly
possible. While cultural features seem to have travelled inland (eg.
a large number of cultivars, pigs and pearlshell) they have
maintained themselves in their valleys since at least 12,000 BCE.
> It is possible, of course, that NG received more boatloads over the
> years, even before the established fact of the Austronesians, but
that
> is hard to prove. The same might also be true for Australia (the
> introduction of the dingo etc. may have been due to new populations
> that linguistically replaced the original Australian lgs., except in
> Tasmania?).
It would seem that there is lttle evidence of linguistic replacement
of riginal Australian languages anywhere in the continent. The
earlier theories of Birdsell and others of three waves of "invaders" -
negritto Tasmanians (and a few people along the Queensland Coast),
southertn Murrayans, and northern Carpentarians has been disproven
genetically. What we find linguistically is that Pama-Nyungan is
found everywhere except in the Kimberley, the northern part of the
Northern Territory and a small area of the Queensland Carpentaria.
In this area we find a large number of totally unrelated languages
(with the exception of Yolnyu of Eastern Arnhemland which is Pama
Nyungan).
In the South West of Western Australia (my home turf) Nyungar (from
which Pama-Nyungan takes its name), is a single language with four or
five dialects, closely related to Yamatji to the North and Wangkai to
the East. Wangkai istelf is a close relative language to those of
the eastern deserts (the many "djara" languages). The linguistic
differences between these seem to be due to a rapid linguistic
replacement and constant borrowing from neighbours, caused by the
fact that when a person dies, no one is allowed to mention that name
again. If they are called "balga" for instance, the name of the
Xanthorhea (Grass Tree) would need to be renamed too. Often there
are alternative names already present, but if not then new names
are "borrowed" from neighbours. This makes the creation of
phylogenic trees amonst the Pama Nyungan members almost impossible.
Hope this helps
Regards
John