"Feeling at home in Vanuatu": Integration of newcomers from the East during the last millennium.

Several localities across the Vanuatu archipelago (Melanesia), so-called 'Polynesian Outliers', are inhabited by communities that display Polynesian linguistic and cultural features although being located outside the Polynesian Triangle. Several introductions of Polynesian genetic components to Central and Southern Vanuatu during the last millenium have resulted in the cultural distinctiveness observed among the Polynesian Outliers in Vanuatu. However, social, political or economic process surrounding the exchange of genes between Polynesian and local individuals remain unidentified. Recent bioanthropological studies suggest the existence of female mobilities from neighboring regions to Vanuatu but also to the Polynesian Outliers of Taumako (Solomon Islands) within patrilocal societies. We aim to examine the hypothesis that Polynesian biological affinities observed in ancient individuals from Vanuatu are gendered or sex-specific, and that some of the Polynesian migrations during the last millennium may have involved practices of exogamy. By reconstructing phenotypes and biological identities from 13 archaeologically-recovered human skulls (400-300 years ago) from "Polynesian-related" regions of Vanuatu, we provide new insights to better contextualize the settlement patterns of Polynesian individuals. Eastern-Pacific associated phenotype are observable in 4 women from the Eretok burial complex (Efate region) and the Polynesian Outlier of Futuna, who were buried in close proximity to individuals with Western-Pacific associated phenotype. We suggest that close integration of individuals from the East into the local Vanuatu society, as well as the practice of exogamy, might have been key processes contributing to the preservation of Polynesian cultural features in Vanuatu over the past millennium. Our finding are cross-referenced with oral records from these two areas, as well as the known genetic makeup of the Vanuatu Polynesian Outliers.

Language continuity despite population replacement in Remote Oceania.

Recent genomic analyses show that the earliest peoples reaching Remote Oceania-associated with Austronesian-speaking Lapita culture-were almost completely East Asian, without detectable Papuan ancestry. However, Papuan-related genetic ancestry is found across present-day Pacific populations, indicating that peoples from Near Oceania have played a significant, but largely unknown, ancestral role. Here, new genome-wide data from 19 ancient South Pacific individuals provide direct evidence of a so-far undescribed Papuan expansion into Remote Oceania starting ~2,500 yr BP, far earlier than previously estimated and supporting a model from historical linguistics. New genome-wide data from 27 contemporary ni-Vanuatu demonstrate a subsequent and almost complete replacement of Lapita-Austronesian by Near Oceanian ancestry. Despite this massive demographic change, incoming Papuan languages did not replace Austronesian languages. Population replacement with language continuity is extremely rare-if not unprecedented-in human history. Our analyses show that rather than one large-scale event, the process was incremental and complex, with repeated migrations and sex-biased admixture with peoples from the Bismarck Archipelago.

Chemical probes for profiling fatty acid-associated proteins in living cells.

Chemical probes appended with reactive electrophiles afford powerful tools for profiling discrete protein families in living cells. Herein, we have synthesized cell-permeable chemical probes that target fatty acid-associated proteins. These fatty acid-based chemical probes contain acyloxymethylketone or fluorophosphonate functional groups and an alkyne click chemistry tag for visualization of covalently modified proteins by in-gel fluorescence scanning. Our fatty acid-based chemical probe affords new tools to evaluate the activity/expression of lipid-associated proteins that should facilitate their functional characterization and inhibitor discovery.