[Added Feb. 7: The above sentence should be rephrased as follows: "If my scenario is correct, then the current situation in the former Sahul could be described in the following terms:"]
1. in Australia, Aborigines with Australoid morphology and Aboriginal hunter-gatherer culture, speaking, for the most part, a Pama-Nyungan language ; 2. in New Guinea, descendants of the original "Negrito" settlers, possibly with a degree of Australoid intermixture, now surviving mostly in the highlands, but also along portions of the coast, living as foragers and part-time horticulturalists -- speaking various "Papuan" languages, though in some cases -- especially along the coast -- Austronesian languages, and retaining at least some of their original African traditions; 3. in New Guinea, descendants of Australian Aborigines formerly based on the New Guinea coast, now living for the most part in the highlands as forager/horticulturalists, possibly intermixed with population 2, both biologically and culturally -- also speaking "Papuan" or in some cases Austronesian languages; 4. relatively recent Austronesian immigrants, speaking Austronesian languages, and inhabiting, for the most part, the northern coastal and lowland areas of New Guinea; practicing an essentially Neolithic, agriculture-oriented culture, with roots in Southeast Asia and strong connections with Polynesia -- but in certain respects also influenced by neighboring Papuan speakers, and in certain cases even speaking Papuan languages.
[Click on the image to enlarge.] For example, the cluster labeled "2a" is a mixture of New Guinea highland and coastal groups, along with a single representative of the Nasioi speakers of Bougainville, in the Solomon Islands. Since Papuan (i.e., non-Austronesian) speakers can be found in both the highlands and the coast, and since Nasioi is a Papuan language, this cluster could be seen, hypothetically, as representative of population group 2, as defined above, i.e., descendants of the original "Negrito" settlers. Since all but one of the groups represented in cluster "1b" are from the highlands, and thus in all likelihood also Papuan speakers, this cluster could also be assigned to group 2. Clusters "1c" and "1d," on the other hand, represent a mix of New Guinea highlanders and Australians, suggesting that the New Guineans in these samples might have originated in group 3, i.e., highland populations in New Guinea formerly centered along the coast, who are not "Negrito" descendants, but originated as Australoid immigrants. There are in addition several unhighlighted clusters (in block 1 only) representing purely Australian groups, which can unproblematically be assigned to population group 1, i.e., Australian Aborigines descended from the original Australoid immigrants. Finally, cluster "1a," a mix of Polynesian and New Guinean coastal populations, most likely belong to group 4, i.e., Austronesian speaking Neolithic farmers, living for the most part along the northern coast of New Guinea, but biologically and culturally most closely associated with Southeast Asia and Polynesia. The above picture, in addition to being highly speculative, is clouded by the authors' failure to identify the specific groups sampled (with the exception of the Nasioi), and also the tendency of Melanesian peoples generally to borrow cultural elements from one another, including not only tools and farming methods, but also rituals, musical instruments and even, on occasion, specific musical practices, at least to some extent. So clearly much more research will be necessary before the hypothesis in question can be adequately tested.
18. The phylogenetic tree I presented in Post 301, (from the 2003 paper by Max Ingman and Ulf Gyllensten, Mitochondrial Genome Variation and Evolutionary History of Australian and New Guinean Aborigines [11]), appears, in certain respects, to reflect the fourfold population structure outlined above*:
[Click on the image to enlarge.] For example, the cluster labeled "2a" is a mixture of New Guinea highland and coastal groups, along with a single representative of the Nasioi speakers of Bougainville, in the Solomon Islands. Since Papuan (i.e., non-Austronesian) speakers can be found in both the highlands and the coast, and since Nasioi is a Papuan language, this cluster could be seen, hypothetically, as representative of population group 2, as defined above, i.e., descendants of the original "Negrito" settlers. Since all but one of the groups represented in cluster "1b" are from the highlands, and thus in all likelihood also Papuan speakers, this cluster could also be assigned to group 2. Clusters "1c" and "1d," on the other hand, represent a mix of New Guinea highlanders and Australians, suggesting that the New Guineans in these samples might have originated in group 3, i.e., highland populations in New Guinea formerly centered along the coast, who are not "Negrito" descendants, but originated as Australoid immigrants. There are in addition several unhighlighted clusters (in block 1 only) representing purely Australian groups, which can unproblematically be assigned to population group 1, i.e., Australian Aborigines descended from the original Australoid immigrants. Finally, cluster "1a," a mix of Polynesian and New Guinean coastal populations, most likely belong to group 4, i.e., Austronesian speaking Neolithic farmers, living for the most part along the northern coast of New Guinea, but biologically and culturally most closely associated with Southeast Asia and Polynesia. The above picture, in addition to being highly speculative, is clouded by the authors' failure to identify the specific groups sampled (with the exception of the Nasioi), and also the tendency of Melanesian peoples generally to borrow cultural elements from one another, including not only tools and farming methods, but also rituals, musical instruments and even, on occasion, specific musical practices, at least to some extent. So clearly much more research will be necessary before the hypothesis in question can be adequately tested.
19. In 2007, on the basis of Cantometric evidence, supplemented by a renewed survey of available recordings and field studies, I put together a report entitled "The Musical Affinities of Some Melanesian Groups." Interestingly, my study produced musical "families" closely correlated with the grouping presented above. The first such family consisted of "Groups Exhibiting Strongest Association with African Pygmy/Bushmen style," i.e., those groups most closely associated musically with the culture of the original Out of Africa migrants (HMC). A second family was characterized by a variant of P/B style that I've called "canonic-echoic." In both cases, all but one of the 12 groups from New Guinea were located in the highlands, and all were Papuan speakers, strongly suggesting membership in population group 2, as defined above. Another style family was "Groups Exhibiting Strongest Association with Indigenous Australia – Unison Singing with 1-beat Accompaniment." Interestingly, only one group from island Melanesia was represented here, along with a mix of 5 New Guinea groups from both the highlands and coastal areas, suggesting membership in group 3. The last category, corresponding to group 4, was "Groups Exhibiting Strongest Association with Western Polynesia," with typically Polynesian characteristics, such as "polyphonic group vocalizing in either rhythmic unison . . . or some form of simple antiphony, with good to excellent tonal blend, medium interval width, wordy . . ." In New Guinea, these were mostly coastal groups, with only one highland group represented -- along with the inhabitants of the Torres Straits, whose culture has been described as closer to Melanesia than Australia, and who may well have been exposed to Austronesian influence. Again, this picture may be distorted by the tendency of some of these groups to borrow rituals, instruments and in some cases even particular songs from one another. Nevertheless, I find the parallels between the historical scenario, the genetic evidence and the musical evidence to be compelling and definitely worthy of further investigation.
*As you may recall, this tree is a bit unusual, as it's based on the mtDNA coding region rather than the noncoding "neutral markers" of the "D-loop," which has usually been the focus of this sort of research in the past. For this reason, the authors chose to forego the usual haplogroup terminology (L, M, N, etc.), which could be misleading. Nevertheless, the clades grouped under the labels "1" and "2" are to be understood as essentially equivalent to mtDNA superhaplogroups "N" and "M" respectively.
*As you may recall, this tree is a bit unusual, as it's based on the mtDNA coding region rather than the noncoding "neutral markers" of the "D-loop," which has usually been the focus of this sort of research in the past. For this reason, the authors chose to forego the usual haplogroup terminology (L, M, N, etc.), which could be misleading. Nevertheless, the clades grouped under the labels "1" and "2" are to be understood as essentially equivalent to mtDNA superhaplogroups "N" and "M" respectively.
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8 comments:
"The first such family consisted of "Groups Exhibiting Strongest Association with African Pygmy/Bushmen style," i.e., those groups most closely associated musically with the culture of the original Out of Africa migrants (HMC). A second family was characterized by a variant of P/B style that I've called "canonic-echoic."
Could you explain in greater detail the difference between P/B style and "canonic-echoic"? As far as I remember, CE isn't found in Africa but is found in South America. Papua New Guinea combines both.
"The last category, corresponding to group 4, was "Groups Exhibiting Strongest Association with Western Polynesia," with typically Polynesian characteristics, such as "polyphonic group vocalizing in either rhythmic unison . . . or some form of simple antiphony, with good to excellent tonal blend, medium interval width, wordy . . ."
Panpipe ensembles found among Austronesian-speakers in Melanesia... Do you interpret them as borrowing/substrate effect from Papuans or they are part of "Western Polynesian" musical tradition?
"in New Guinea, descendants of the original "Negrito" settlers, possibly with a degree of Australoid intermixture.."
I'm not sure I agree with the idea that Australian aborigines represent a later arrival to the Sahul. The one-beat iterative unison style has a more patchy distribution, with wider gaps, in the Circumpacific area. If Australian aborigines represented a more recent wave of colonization of the Pacific, as compared to the "Papuan" populations, then we would expect to find the one-beat iterative unison style much more frequently in Asia and Australasia.
It seems likely that "Australoid" culture and biology was once more widely spread in Asia and America (compare the various connections between Fuegians and Australian aborigines, especially in terms of their skull robusticity) but, outside of America, survived in isolation in Australia.
Lomax places Australian aborigines within his "Circumpacific style" with a root in northeastern Siberia and offshoots in America. This style, he writes, "once stretched uninterruptedly from Siberia south to Australia" (Factors of Musical Style, 37). So, we have breathless solo shared between Circumarctic and South America and iterative one beat unison between Australia and North America. Both are branches within your type B.
German: "Could you explain in greater detail the difference between P/B style and "canonic-echoic"? As far as I remember, CE isn't found in Africa but is found in South America. Papua New Guinea combines both."
Melodic displacement, aka "canon" or "round" is one mode of polyphonic interaction characteristic of P/B. Canons or rounds can also be found in many other parts of the world, but in SE Asia, Melanesia and Central and South America we find a variant, where melodic displacement is characterized by loose rhythmic coordination. Because this variant style, which I call "canonic-echoic," appears to be completely absent from SSAfrica, I attribute it to the effects of the "Toba" bottleneck event. However, it could be due to some other bottleneck that occurred after the Out of Africa exodus.
"Panpipe ensembles found among Austronesian-speakers in Melanesia... Do you interpret them as borrowing/substrate effect from Papuans or they are part of "Western Polynesian" musical tradition?"
That's an excellent question. Also a very complex one, since the Austronesians also have Out of Africa roots, some of which could go back very far. Some Austronesian speakers in Melanesia have panpipe traditions, yes. And there is historical evidence of panpipes in parts of Polynesia as well, though none appear to have survived long enough to have been recorded. It's possible that Austronesian panpipes are/were traditional but it's also possible that they are due to borrowings from native Melanesians. The distribution and history of panpipes is something I need research more fully. The information is there but it is scattered all over the place.
German: "I'm not sure I agree with the idea that Australian aborigines represent a later arrival to the Sahul. The one-beat iterative unison style has a more patchy distribution, with wider gaps, in the Circumpacific area. If Australian aborigines represented a more recent wave of colonization of the Pacific, as compared to the "Papuan" populations, then we would expect to find the one-beat iterative unison style much more frequently in Asia and Australasia."
This is indeed a difficult issue, which I'll be struggling with in my next post.
"Lomax places Australian aborigines within his "Circumpacific style" with a root in northeastern Siberia and offshoots in America. This style, he writes, "once stretched uninterruptedly from Siberia south to Australia""
Back up to the beginning of the sentence: "In East and Southeast Asia the rise of high Chinese, Indo-Chinese, Malaysian and Polynesian high culture obscure a tradition that seems to have once stretched uninterruptedly from Siberia south to Australia." If Lomax was right, then both Australia and North America could be regarded as huge refuge areas for peoples who originally might have dominated much of East Asia generally, from the south to the north.
"It's possible that Austronesian panpipes are/were traditional but it's also possible that they are due to borrowings from native Melanesians."
What I observe in kinship is that Austronesian and Papuan systems are often very similar. And this is not the case of diffusion. I learned how to distinguish them but the difference is often highly nuanced, rather than sharp and clear-cut. Diversity is definitely greater among Papuan systems (that's why if you look at them in bulk and then look at Austronesian systems in bulk you'll see which one is which) but if you take one "interesting" system from an Austronesian sample and one from a Papuan sample, they will be very similar. The Austronesian system would be only one or two steps away from the Papuan system.
It seems that a bulk of Papuan systems came from the same ancestral population as the Austronesian systems, only much/somewhat earlier.
At the same time, there are Papuan kinship systems (such as those found in the small Tor family) that are just like those found in Pama-Nuyngan populations, especially those in the Cape York Peninsula.
"If Lomax was right, then both Australia and North America could be regarded as huge refuge areas for peoples who originally might have dominated much of East Asia generally, from the south to the north."
Yes, this is exactly how I would interpret it. I would, quite predictably, push it even further to argue that North America is the refugium of the original inventors of this style (otherwise we would have to attribute the origin of this style to places in Asia in which no instances of it survived, which is quite ephemeral), but we can just leave it as is for now.
"If Lomax was right, then both Australia and North America could be regarded as huge refuge areas for peoples who originally might have dominated much of East Asia generally, from the south to the north."
And to add to this: there's a very clear common footprint uniting the kinship systems of Na-Dene, Uto-Aztecan and some other Amerindian groups in North America, on the one hand, and Australian aborigines, on the other. When I read Underhill et al. 2001, in which they linked Y-DNA haplogroup C lineages of the Na-Dene Indians with those of Australian aborigines, I thought it was heck of a match. These kinship systems are almost non-existent in Northeast, East and Southeast Asia, although Northeast Asian ones are direct derivatives of those that are fully attested in North America and Australia. Notably, the kinship systems of the Paleosiberian peoples are outside of this cluster, although Saami may be part of it.
"but in SE Asia, Melanesia and Central and South America we find a variant, where melodic displacement is characterized by loose rhythmic coordination."
When it comes to kinship, you seem to believe that the "loose" historically precedes the "rigid," as evidenced by one of your earlier posts: "All the above suggests that HBC may have had either a very flexible and loosely defined kinship system..." (smiley face.)
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