Today's Australian Aborigines descend directly from an early migration wave of modern humans (Homo sapiens ) from Africa to Asia, which occurred about 70,000 years ago; that is at least 24,000 years before the migration of "Africans" from which modern Europeans and Asians descend! This is shown by genome research by an international group of scientists, the results of which have been published in the journal Science .
In the early twentieth century, an Aboriginal man from the Goldfields region of Western Australia donated a lock of hair to a British anthropologist. Now, a century later, researchers have isolated the DNA from these hairs to unravel the genome of the first Australians to shed more light on the early distribution of modern humans (Homo sapiens ) about our planet.
The genome, which was found to contain no influences from modern European Australians, shows that the ancestors of Aboriginal man must have split from other human peoples between 75,000 and 64,000 years ago.
The Australian Aboriginals thus descend directly from the first modern explorers, who eventually arrived in Australia via Asia about 50,000 years ago. The research shows that Australian Aborigines – as the only population group outside Africa – have the longest relationship with the land they live on today.
Two out-of-Africa waves
The history of the Australian Aborigines also plays a major role in reconstructing the dispersal of the first modern humans from Africa. There was already archaeological evidence that Homo sapiens has been present in Australia for about 50,000 years, but this study sheds new light on how it got there. Until now, it was generally assumed that all modern humans descended from a single wave of migration towards Europe, Asia and Australia. However, this new research suggests that the ancestors of the Australian Aboriginal people split off from these African emigrants before, and that they barely mixed with the early Asians on their way to Australia. Incidentally, modern humans may have spread far into Asia as early as 125,000 years ago, as it turned out at the beginning of this year.
Amazing journey
Professor Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen and lead researcher of this study, explains:“Australian Aboriginal people are descended from the first human explorers. While the ancestors of the Europeans and Asians were still somewhere in Africa or the Middle East, the ancestors of the Australian Aborigines spread quickly. They were the first modern humans to cross uncharted territory in Asia, eventually crossing the sea to Australia. It was an astonishing journey that must have demanded exceptional survival techniques and courage.”
Himalayas
Prof. dr. Peter de Knijff (LUMC) was jointly responsible for the interpretation of the results of both the mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome research for the entire study. “We also supplied valuable material from the Kusunda, a people living in the Himalayas,” says De Knijff. “Because of their unique language and their hunter-gatherer culture, they may have descended from that first Out-of-Africa wave. But our DNA analyzes show that they are genetically indistinguishable from their Nepalese neighbors.”
The research has major implications for our understanding of the distribution of our human ancestors across the Earth. Until now, ancient human genomes have only been obtained from hair preserved in a frozen state. The researchers have now shown that hair that has been preserved under much less ideal conditions can also be used for genome research. Without risk of contamination with modern human material.
With the help of museum collections, researchers can now study the genetic histories of many indigenous peoples worldwide, even if those peoples have recently moved or mixed genetically.