Pacific Bananas: Complex Origins, Multiple Dispersals?

Abstract

This paper reviews recent genetic evidence for the origins of the traditional cultivated bananas of the Pacific, and shows that they are unexpectedly complex. Current assumption of their prevailing west-to-east spread from Southeast Asia into the Pacific thus needs modification. Although bananas are widely assumed to have been part of the set of crops transported to Polynesia at first settlement, the linguistic evidence on which this is based underestimates the diversity of bananas in the New Guinea region and is suspect. Archaeological evidence of bananas is so far very tenuous. Recent genetic evidence of the parentage of most groups of cultivated bananas shows that the primary step toward edibility occurred in the Philippines– New Guinea region. Early movements westward across Island Southeast Asia must have occurred, and the complexity of hybrids makes regionally dispersed development likely. There is no demonstrable link with Taiwan or the adjacent coast of China. There is no evidence that the genetically distinct lineages of bananas found in Polynesia were brought together in the putatively ancestral Lapita crop assemblage of the northern New Guinea region. The complex phylogeny of the cultivated Pacific bananas may thus suggest multiple prehistoric introductions of bananas to Polynesia. If bananas were part of the founding set of crops of Remote Oceania, the question ''which bananas?'' is currently unanswered.

The Original Banana Split: Multi-disciplinary implications of the generation of African and Pacific Plantains in Island Southeast Asia

“…For instance, archaeobotanical, botanical, and genetic evidence indicates that P were generated in ISEA and were likely spread under cultivation to West Africa by 2790-2300 cal BP (De Langhe 2007, De Langhe & de Maret 1999, Mbida et al 2000, Perrier et al 2011. Similar lines of multidisciplinary evidence suggest MP were generated and dispersed eastwards from the Bismarck Archipelago into uninhabited archipelagos of Remote Oceania after c. 3100 cal BP , Kennedy 2008.…”

Why Bananas Matter: An introduction to the history of banana domestication

“…For example, archaeobotanical evidence of Musa bananas in areas beyond the natural range of the genus, especially Africa, is indicative of introduction, adoption and dispersal by people in the distant or recent past (Neumann & Hildebrand 2009. Additionally, when archaeobotanical evidence is taken in conjunction with plant genetics and historical linguistics, robust chronologies of edible banana generation and dispersal can be established, such as the inferred movement of bananas from New Guinea to eastern Indonesia in the mid-Holocene (Denham & Donohue 2009, Donohue & Denham 2009a, Kennedy 2008). …”

Tracing Domestication and Cultivation of Bananas from Phytoliths: An update from Papua New Guinea

“…Recent research (Denham et al 2003, Lebot 1999 shows that the New Guinea region has played a key role in the development of the domesticated banana, and complex origins and multiple dispersals for banana cultivars within the southeast Asian/Pacific region are indicated (Kennedy 2008). Phytoliths hold the key to tracing the history of banana cultivation and domestication in the archaeobotanical record, and morphometric and morphotypic analyses show good potential for differentiation of phytoliths.…”

“…Additionally, there are hundreds of diploid, triploid and polyploid cultivars derived from a few wild species from two sections of bananas (Eumusa and Australimusa) that are cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide (Argent 1976, Arnaud & Horry 1997, Daniells et al 2001, Kennedy 2008, Lentfer 2003a, Pollefeys et al 2004, Sharrock 1990, Simmonds 1959, 1962, Valmayor 2001, Wong et al 2001. Phytogeography and genetic evidence shows that the domesticated Australimusa Fe`i banana almost certainly originated in the New Guinea region (Jarret et al 1992, MacDaniels 1947, Simmonds 1959, but the origins of the more commonly known and widely marketed Eumusa cultivars have been more difficult to determine.…”

“…The large number of diploid AA cultivars with both banksii and errans genomes, as well as the absence of the errans genome in the African AAB plantains but its presence together with the banksii genome in the Pacific AAB Maia Maoli plantains are interesting and imply complex species and subspecies interactions within the Philippines/New Guinea regions. This would have involved human diffusion of bananas, probably concurrent with the earliest transfer of the banksii A genome westwards into Island Southeast Asia, and then to mainland Asia and eventually Africa, and also subsequently over an extended period as people expanded eastwards into the Pacific (Kennedy 2008). …”