Ancient pig bones hold key to Scots scientists' research

SCOTTISH scientists are setting out to solve of one of the most intriguing mysteries of Earth's colonisation – by studying the remains of 3,000-year-old pigs.

Anthropologists have put forward various theories to explain how the people who first colonised the Pacific came to be there. But pioneering research by scientists at Aberdeen and Durham universities now suggests that the early colonists may have originated in Vietnam.

And they have been awarded 800,000 by the Natural Environment Research Council to reconstruct the original migration route of the first Pacific colonists by examining the bones of 3,000-year-old pigs, dogs and chickens.

Using cutting-edge techniques, they will examine the DNA and shape of the bones and teeth of the ancient animals, known to have travelled with the first colonists, to chart their amazing journey across the Pacific.

Keith Dobney, the professor of human palaeoecology at Aberdeen University, who is leading the three-year study, said the preliminary data collected by the research team appeared to contradict most of the established models of human migration.

Instead, their studies suggested the early colonists – or certainly the domestic pigs they transported – originated somewhere in Vietnam or south-west China, and took a migration route through the southern Indonesian island chain.

He explained: "The invention of farming appears to have triggered a rapid spread of a new way of life across the globe.

"The first colonisers of one of the largest oceans on the planet were not only adventurers, but also farmers who carried with them this new farming package, comprising of domesticated plants and animals."