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September 2011, Daily News

Aboriginal Australians descended from early migration of modern humans out of Africa, study says

Thu, Sep 22, 2011

Genome sequencing study suggests that Aboriginal Australians are descended from early wave of modern humans who migrated out of Africa perhaps 62,000 - 75,000 years ago.

Aboriginal Australians descended from early migration of modern humans out of Africa, study says

Little did he know that giving a team of scientists a lock of his hair would provide answers to some profound questions about the origins of humankind in his native Australia. But that is exactly what happened when scientists sequenced his genome and found that he was descended from a very ancient wave of modern humanity out of Africa and eventually into Australia some 62,000 - 75,000 years ago. 

He is an Aboriginal Australian. The results of the genetic tests showed that modern humans migrated into Eastern Asia in more than one wave and that he, along with all of his fellow Aboriginal Australians, could claim direct heritage with a very early wave, perhaps even the first wave. This meant that his population constituted one of the oldest continuous populations outside of Africa. 

The debate concerning how and when Eastern Asia was populated has been an ongoing one. Central to this has been the question regarding whether modern humans migrated into this part of the world in a single wave or in multiple waves. The origins of the Aboriginal Australians has been an integral part of the total debate.

Morten Rasmussen of the Natural History Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, and his team of colleagues compared the Aboriginal genome sequence with no less than 79 other genome sequences from Africa, Asia and Europe, including genomes from three Han Chinese individuals*. The results suggest that modern humans actually did migrate in more than one event or wave into East Asia, supporting the multiple event theory, and that the Aboriginal genome represented a very early or ancient migratory event, possibly as long ago as between 62,000 and 75,000 years ago, with their ancestors eventually arriving in Australia at around 50,000 B.P. The suggested African exodus corresponds to a time when many scientists postulate that the first modern humans ventured out of Africa to populate Eurasia. It also suggests that the Aboriginal Australians were the earliest modern humans to occupy Australia. Moreover, their study indicated that most Asians today descend from an original population that migrated into East Asia around 24,000 to 50,000 years ago.

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Reconstruction of early spread of modern humans outside Africa. The tree shows the divergence of the Aboriginal Australian (ABR) relative to the CEPH European (CEU) and the Han Chinese (HAN) with gene flow between aboriginal Australasians and Asian ancestors. Purple arrowshows early spread of the ancestors of Aboriginal Australians into eastern Asia ~62,000 to 75,000 years B.P. (ka BP), exchanging genes with Denisovans, and reaching Australia ~50,000 years B.P. Black arrow shows spread of East Asians ~25,000 to 38,000 years B.P. and admixing with remnants of the early dispersal (red arrow) some time before the split between Asians and Native American ancestors ~15,000 to 30,000 years B.P. YRI, Yoruba. [Image courtesy of Science/AAAS]

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The paper detailing this study is published online by the journal Science at the Science Express website at http://www.sciencexpress.org. It will also be published in the September 23 issue of Science, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

*"An Aboriginal Australian Genome Reveals Separate Human Dispersals into Asia," by M. Rasmussen; L. Orlando; M.C. Ávila-Arcos; J.V. Moreno-Mayar; M.T.P. Gilbert; A. Krogh; E. Willerslev; S. Lindgreen at Natural History Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, Denmark. 

Cover Photo, Top Left: Aboriginal cave, Blue Mountains. Courtesy Sardaka, Wikimedia Commons

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Comments(2):

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    Friday, September 23, 2011 greg

    a

  2. Aboriginal Australians

    Friday, September 23, 2011 greg

    Hi i don't know if my first post was sent so i am doing it again- sorry. Being an Australian i found this article very interesting but i was wondering who they took the genome from? Was it the Australian mainland Aboriginal or the Tasmanian Aboriginal? I ask this because of what i have read over recent years in regards to who was our original occupier. The general theory seems to be that the Tasmanian Aboriginal was here first and that he was hunted,killed and driven out from the Australian mainland to Tasmania, which was back then accessible by land - this ceased when the bass straight was formed not long after this thus cutting access off so they were then left alone. This theory was recently some what backed up by the finding of their rock art, which is small round holes drilled in rocks, in the north of Australia and was found to be much older then that of the current aboriginal painted rock art. This type of hole drilled rock art is found all through out Tasmania but there is no sign of our current Aboriginal type of painted rock art. Does this mean then that the Tasmanian Aboriginal would have been here for a lot longer then the current Aborigine and would have their own genome. And if this was the case then could it mean that he came from further down our human ancestral line? I would love to know if they or any one else intend on doing a genome sequence of the Tasmanian Aboriginal.It would be very interesting to see where it sits in the evolutionary sequence. Cheers Greg