Page 113 - THE MELANESIA DIASPORA FILE CETAK ISI 10022017

the morphological finding and would be very useful for understanding the link between
modern human and the hominins. Krause et al. (2007) and Green et al. (2008), from the
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, reported the mtDNA sequences
of East Asian and Siberian Neanderthals. By using a highly sensitive technology, they
successfully conducted a complete DNA sequencing. One of the hominins has the
sequence of a Neanderthal found in the Altai mountains in southern Siberia. The same
group also determined thecomplete mtDNA from a chunk of finger bone of a young
hominin found in the Denisovan cave in Siberia (Reich et al., 2010). The finger bone was

estimated to be 50,000 to 30,000 years old. When examining the population history
of Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern humans, recently it was shown that the
ancestors of the New Guinea and Bougainville islanders inherited 4-6% of Denisovan
genetic material. This discovery adds to our understanding of the early migrations to the
Southeast Asian islands and Oceania as well giving information on the number of ancient
settlements migration waves. Denisovan genetic material in Southeast Asia is easy to
distinguish because it has many points of difference with that of modern human DNA.
Therefore, the presence or absence of Denisovan genetic material in certain populations
could help us better understand the human migration history in Indonesia and Oceania.
David Reich et al. (2011) conducted a follow-up study to the homonin discovery in order
to obtain information about genetic admixtures of hominins and modern human. For this
purpose, 33 populations from Asia and Oceania were analyzed. It included nine Indonesian
populations from East Nusa Tenggara (Alor, Flores, Rote, and Timor), Moluccas (Hiri and
Ternate), Borneo, and Sumatra (Besemah and Semende). Meanwhile Oceanic populations
included highland New Guinea, Fiji, and Polynesia (the Cook Islands, Futuna, Niue, Samoa,
Tokelau, Tonga, and Tuvalu).
The picture presented here of the initial arrival of modern human to Southeast Asia and
Oceania out of Africa has been widely accepted, however the advancement of technology
and bioinformatics and the development of algorithms have led to a new understanding
about the abundant number of modern human migration waves which have contribute
towards the current settlement picture. Archaeological research supports the theory
of settlement via a single wave via the southern coast of Asia and also multiple waves
coming from East Asia. The single wave theory from mitochondrial DNA, strengthened
by the largest data about Asia which was built based on studies on 73 populations using
55,000 SNP, was actually non exclusive. Studies using SNP with more coverage on the
human genome displayed the presence of two migration waves, as well as the findings

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