Laga Ayam

Kita teruskan dengan kisah 'laga ayam' kali ini yang juga adalah bahan artikel yang ditemui semasa menelusuri rumpun Austronesian seperti 'hikayat ubi keledek' lepas. Masih lagi berkisar sekitar bukti kewujudan interaksi antara bangsa masyarakat Polynesia dengan masyarakat asli Amerika Selatan sekaligus menonjolkan kehebatan semulajadi masyarakat sub-Austronesia ini yang telah meneroka lautan luas di antara 3000SM - 1000SM.

Kon Tiki Fried Chicken?

Most scholars assume that the chicken, like the horse, was unknown in the New World before the arrival of the Spaniards. But now radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis of a chicken bone excavated from a site in Chile suggest Polynesians in ocean-going canoes brought chickens to the west coast of South America well before Europe's "Age of Discovery."

Some 50 chicken bones belonging to five chickens were recently recovered from the site of El Arenal-1, on Chile's Arauco Peninsula. The site is the first excavated settlement of the Andean people known as the Mapuche, who lived on the southern fringe of the Inca empire from about A.D. 1000 to 1500.

An international team including bioarchaeologist Alice Storey of the University of Auckland studied one of the El Arenal-1 chicken bones. They found that its DNA sequence was identical to chicken remains recovered from archaeological sites on the Polynesian islands of Tonga and American Samoa, according to a new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Falling between A.D. 1321 and 1407, the chicken dates to the period when Easter Island and the other easternmost islands of Polynesia were being colonized.

Sumber: Eric A. Powell, ARCHAEOLOGY, Kon Tiki Fried Chicken?, paparan 4 Jun 2007, Archaeological Institute of America.

Berikut adalah abstrak dari kertas kajian bukti DNA dan pentarikhan radiokarbon berkaitan kajian saintifik yang mencadangkan ayam telah dikembang-biak oleh masyarakat asli Amerika dan dipercayai dibawa masuk oleh masyarakat Polynesia (di antara 1321M dan 1407M) sebelum era pra-Colombia (sekitar 1532M);

Two issues long debated among Pacific and American prehistorians are (i) whether there was a pre-Columbian introduction of chicken (Gallus gallus) to the Americas and (ii) whether Polynesian contact with South America might be identified archaeologically, through the recovery of remains of unquestionable Polynesian origin. We present a radiocarbon date and an ancient DNA sequence from a single chicken bone recovered from the archaeological site of El Arenal-1, on the Arauco Peninsula, Chile. These results not only provide firm evidence for the pre-Columbian introduction of chickens to the Americas, but strongly suggest that it was a Polynesian introduction.

Sumber: Alice A. Storey, José Miguel Ramírez, Daniel Quiroz, David V. Burley, David J. Addison, Richard Walter, Atholl J. Anderson, Terry L. Hunt, J. Stephen Athens, Leon Huynen, and Elizabeth A. Matisoo-Smith
Radiocarbon and DNA evidence for a pre-Columbian introduction of Polynesian chickens to Chile
PNAS June 19, 2007 vol. 104 no. 25 10335-10339.

Bagaimanapun sekumpulan pengkaji lain meragui hasil kajian ini;

To understand the origin of these populations, we have generated partial mitochondrial DNA control region sequences from 41 native Chilean specimens and compared them with a previously generated database of ≈1,000 domestic chicken sequences from across the world as well as published Chilean and Polynesian ancient DNA sequences. The modern Chilean sequences cluster closely with haplotypes predominantly distributed among European, Indian subcontinental, and Southeast Asian chickens, consistent with a European genetic origin.

Modeling of the potential marine carbon contribution to the Chilean archaeological specimen casts further doubt on claims for pre-Columbian chickens, and definitive proof will require further analyses of ancient DNA sequences and radiocarbon and stable isotope data from archaeological excavations within both Chile and Polynesia.

Sumber: Jaime Gongora, Nicolas J. Rawlence, Victor A. Mobegi, Han Jianlin, Jose A. Alcalde, Jose T. Matus, Olivier Hanotte, Chris Moran, Jeremy J. Austin, Sean Ulm, Atholl J. Anderson, Greger Larson, and Alan Cooper
Indo-European and Asian origins for Chilean and Pacific chickens revealed by mtDNA
PNAS July 29, 2008 vol. 105 no. 30 10308-10313

Kumpulan pengkaji yang mengusulkan kemasukan ayam ke Amerika oleh masyarakat Polynesia menambah mengukuhkan teori ini;

Gongora et al. analyzed mtDNA of modern chickens only. They gave no consideration to the fact that both European and prehistoric Pacific chickens are ultimately Asian-derived and thus may be expected to share lineages. European stocks were further influenced by the 19th-century import of Chinese chickens to develop commercial and show breeds.

Seterusnya penerangan yang (di luar kapasiti saya ;p) bagi mengukuhkan lagi hasil kajian sebelumnya;

Ultimately, the question rests on the antiquity of the El Arenal chickens. We have directly dated and sequenced two additional chicken bones from the site, which is not a shell midden as claimed. Stable isotope determinations (δ 13C, δ 15N, and δ 34S) further confirm a terrestrial dietary signature; thus, no marine calibration of the dates is required. All dates obtained from the site are securely pre-Columbian (even at 2σ), consistent with the stratigraphic and artifactual evidence. Therefore, the most parsimonious explanation continues to be that chickens were first introduced to South America by Polynesian voyagers as part of a well-documented eastward expansion.

Sumber: Alice A. Storey, José Miguel Ramírez, Daniel Quiroz, David V. Burley, David J. Addison, Richard Walter, Atholl J. Anderson, Terry L. Hunt, J. Stephen Athens, Leon Huynen, and Elizabeth A. Matisoo-Smith
Pre-Columbian chickens, dates, isotopes, and mtDNA
PNAS December 2, 2008 vol. 105 no. 48 E99

Seterusnya kedua-dua kumpulan pengkaji terus bertelagah (secara akademik) tentang ayam Amerika yang masih belum disepakati asal keturunannya. Kita nantikan sumber-sumber lain dalam pelayaran (internet) yang akan datang.

Sambil itu kongsi sedikit lagi, catatan dari Blake Edgar untuk Archaeological Institute of America bertarikh Mac/April 2005 berkaitan interaksi antara bangsa masyarakat Polynesia dengan masyarakat asli Amerika;

Among North American Indians, only the Chumash, and later the neighboring Gabrielino, built sewn-plank canoes. In the Western Hemisphere, this distinctive technology is otherwise known only from the coast of Chile and among Pacific islanders. Compared to wooden dugout canoes or balsas made from bundled tule reeds, tomols are faster, more stable at sea, more durable, and able to carry larger loads for longer distances. It has been called "the greatest invention of the California Indians," but whether the Chumash were the tomol's inventors is now being questioned. What if the idea just washed ashore? What if the Chumash encountered the unchallenged masters of oceanic navigation, the Polynesians, and learned the idea from them? The suggestion provokes archaeologists because it implies that the tomol did not stem from Chumash cultural evolution but rather from a chance landing of people who traveled from more than two thousand miles away. Could something as important as the development of the tomol have been an accident of history?

Did ancient Hawaiians teach California Indians how to make ocean-going canoes?

Sumber: Blake Edgar The Polynesian Connection, ARCHAELOGY, Archaeological Institute of America, Volume 58 Number 2, March/April 2005