The Coastal Papuans of Nebira

Nebira is a double-peaked hill on the Laloki plain inland from Port Moresby, in Motu-Koita country, where the hiri trade once carried pottery along the coast in exchange for sago. Twelve people buried there between about 1400 and 1800 CE are gathered here. Their genomes carry between 45 and 60 percent East Asian-related ancestry, the Austronesian signal, against only about 20 percent at Eriama a few kilometres away. The two communities, so close on the map, had stopped exchanging genes roughly thirteen generations, some 640 years, before these people lived, and their admixture dated on average to about 1,500 years ago. The work was carried out with the permission of Papua New Guinea's National Museum and Art Gallery, and its results were discussed with the museum.

The genome-wide data behind this entry was published in The impact of human dispersals and local interactions on the genetic diversity of coastal Papua New Guinea over the past 2,500 years.

Every Ancestry Map includes the free Notable Matches lens: your coordinates are compared to every sequenced member of every catalog entry, and the distance to the closest member is reported, a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional space the Distance lens uses. Because these are a small group of real individuals, not a population average, distances naturally run larger than population distances. That is expected, not a poor result. And one thing is never claimed: a small distance means similar ancestry composition, not that the Coastal Papuans of Nebira are your ancestor. See how it looks in the live demo or read about Ancestry Map, the full Global25 report.

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  Who were the Coastal Papuans of Nebira?

  The Coastal Papuans of Nebira (c. 1400-1800 CE, Nebira, Laloki plain, Central Province, Papua New Guinea) are one of the Iconic discoveries entries in our Notable Matches catalog, represented by 12 sequenced ancient genomes published in the study "The impact of human dispersals and local interactions on the genetic diversity of coastal Papua New Guinea over the past 2,500 years".

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  What does "matching" the Coastal Papuans of Nebira mean?

  Your Global25 coordinates are compared to the entry's sequenced members and the distance to the closest one is reported, a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional reference space the Distance lens uses. A notable entry is one person or one small burial group, not a population average, so distances naturally run larger than population distances.

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  Are they my ancestor?

  No, and no DNA test can show that. A small distance means your genome sits near theirs in a shared reference space: similar ancestry composition, not descent. Ancestrify never claims a notable individual is your ancestor or relative.

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  How do I see my own distance to the Coastal Papuans of Nebira?

  Notable Matches is a free lens on every Ancestry Map, never sold separately. Order Ancestry Map, our Global25 analysis (29.99 EUR), and your report ranks your coordinates against the full catalog, with a portrait, dossier and map for every entry. The public demo shows the lens with example data.

The catalog holds every published entry across three tiers. Browse the full Notable Matches directory. Nearby entries:

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