Photograph by Lindsey Larson
Dr. Lisa Matisoo-Smith, the Genographic Project's newest Principal Investigator.
Dr. Matisoo-Smith joined the Genographic project as a Principal Investigator to further our work with Pacific Island communities. She took the time to answer a couple questions for us, so click on "read this entire post" to read the interview.
The Genographic Project: What makes the Pacific Island communities so interesting and relevant to the story of human migration?Dr. Lisa Matisoo-Smith, the Genographic Project's newest Principal Investigator.
Dr. Matisoo-Smith joined the Genographic project as a Principal Investigator to further our work with Pacific Island communities. She took the time to answer a couple questions for us, so click on "read this entire post" to read the interview.
Well, working on Pacific Islands is many peoples' idea of ideal fieldwork and the Pacific provides wonderful opportunities to address many hypotheses related to human history, biology and adaptation. The human settlement of the Pacific involved some of the earliest human population migrations out of Africa - resulting in the initial settlement of Australia and New Guinea perhaps as early as 50,000 years ago. It also involved the last major human migration and colonization event, when humans reached the extremes of Polynesian Triangle (Hawaii, Easter Island and New Zealand) in the last thousand years. Extremes in history, geography, environments, and degrees of isolation all result in highly variable populations.
The people living in this area, while adapting to the changes associated with a modern world, have, for the most part, maintained their traditional languages and cultures. While all of these factors make the Pacific a great place to work as a biological anthropologist, the most exciting aspect of working with Pacific Island communities is the people. Being welcomed into these communities, working with them, learning from them and sharing ideas and information all result in my dream job.
GP: So why did you first start studying animal DNA instead of human DNA?
The animals provide a great proxy for tracking the movement of prehistoric human populations across the Pacific. I knew that those early colonists carried a number of plant and animal species with them in their canoes and they introduced these "commensal" species to the new islands they settled. The animals that Pacific peoples introduced to their new homes included dogs, pigs, chickens and a small rat species called Rattus exulans. I figured that if I could determine the origins of the various island populations of these animals, it would tell us where the canoes came from, and therefore where the people who transported them came from.
So I have spent the last 15 years studying mtDNA variation in rats, dogs, pigs and chickens. The Rattus exulans we find on Pacific islands today are the descendants of those introduced by the first colonists - providing us with direct information to the puzzle of humanity's journey.
Photograph by Jim Ridges Lisa dissects rats on Emira Island.
GP: So, rats! You are definitely our first Principal Investigator to study live rats. Do you have any interesting stories from your studies of this rodent?
Interesting stories??? After a while, rumours of "the rat lady" tend to circulate through the communication networks and generally precede my arrival on an island or in a village. And once I explain why I'm interested in rats and people actually see what I'm doing, they become very interested.
GP: Do you have any personal anecdotes about how complicated studying the migrations of people can be?
I always use my own history to explain how complicated tracking ancient human migrations can be when we are looking at DNA collected from modern populations. I live in New Zealand (in Polynesia), was born in Hawaii (in Polynesia) but I speak English, with an American accent. My last name (Matisoo) is Estonian but some of my HLA markers (genetic markers) would suggest that I came originally from northern Asia, yet I have blonde hair and blue eyes. So, the language, biology, culture and various genetic markers may all tell different stories and none may be related to the location where the sample was collected - all are part of the history of the individual and all make sense if you understand the individual's family history. However, if someone took my own DNA sample out of a freezer in any of the many countries that I have lived in, it could give pretty strange results for a study of population origins!
GP: What do you hope to add to the Genographic Project from the Pacific region?
Well, first, I hope we can fill in that map that extends across nearly a quarter of the earth's surface and extend the timeline of human migrations to include the last 10,000 years. The prehistoric exploration and settlement of the Pacific, and the Remote Pacific in particular, was one of the greatest feats in human history.
There are many questions that remain and these are the questions that we hope to address through the Genographic Project: How many populations came into the region 50,000 years ago and how many came in the last 10,000 years, from where? Is there genetic evidence for prehistoric contact between Polynesians and peoples in the Americas? But it is also important to bring the Genographic Project and the information generated to the people of the Pacific. Many communities want this kind of information; they want the educational resources and opportunities this project can provide for the young people in the region.
GP: Thank you Lisa!
