Late night reading... Prehistoric distribution and dispersal of the bottle gourd ( Lagenaria siceraria ) in Asia, the Americas, and Oceania. The bottle gourd hasbeen present in the Americas and East Asia since 10,000 and 7,000 year, respectively (Chang 1986; Smith 2005). In the case of the East Asian bottlegourd, it is unclear how far south it spread in prehistory (indicated by dashed line). The Southeast Asian bottle gourd may in fact be a much more recent arrival from India 200BC . (Green 2000) and spread only as far east as Vanuatu in prehistory (Yen 1973). The bottle gourd was apparently not present inWestern Polynesia (Whistler 1990) (the Bottle Gourd Gap), suggesting that it was not introduced from Asia into Polynesia via human-mediated dispersal(although natural dispersal is still possible). However, the bottle gourd may not have been required in the Gap region as Lapita pottery was widelyavailable as an alternative for containers (distribution of Lapita sites from Kirch [2000]). The bottle gourd was also present in Eastern Polynesia sincebefore AD 1,200 (Green 2000) and may have been introduced from the Americas by either natural (floating) or human-mediated dispersal. A human mediated introduction from South America could have been effected by Polynesian voyagers who departed from Easter Island around A D .1,000,sailed to the Peruvian Coast, and returned probably to the Tuamotu Archipelago with the sweet potato (route based on that suggested for the sweet potato by Green [2005]). Similarly, Polynesian voyagers could have introduced the bottle gourd from North America via a return sailing trip from Hawaii to the Californian Channel Islands around A . D. 400–800 (Jones and Klar 2005), although this hypothesis is yet to be tested academia.edu/300952/Reconstructing_the_origins_and_dispersal_of_the_Polynesian_bottle_gourd_Lagenaria_siceraria_
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 02:51:44 +0000
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