Citation: West K, Collins C, Kardailsky O, Kahn J, Hunt TL, Burley DV and Matisoo-Smith E (2017) The Pacific Rat Race to Easter Island: Tracking the Prehistoric Dispersal of Rattus exulans Using Ancient Mitochondrial Genomes. Front. Ecol. Evol. 5:52. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2017.00052 The Pacific Rat Race to Easter Island: Tracking the Prehistoric Dispersal of Rattus exulans Using Ancient Mitochondri...

Background and Rationale Post-marital residence patterns refer to where a couple lives after marriage, such as near or with husband's kin (patrilocality) or wife's kin (matrilocality). These patterns influence other aspects of social organization and behavior, and potentially reveal key parts of human nature. Since the 1860s, anthropologists have sought to characterize prehistoric hunter-gather...