DNA and Aboriginal Australians

Migration of human populations from 100,000 to 1500 years ago. Wikimedia Commons.

Originally published on my World History class blog on October 4, 2016.

Two weeks ago, the British newspaper The Guardian published an article (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. about some recent research into the human genome. DNA analysis of indigenous Australians and Papuans (from nearby Papua New Guinea) has indicated that these are the oldest human populations on earth - in other words, their genome diverged from those of other human populations earlier than any other still around today. These geneticists have determined that populations in Australia remained genetically isolated there from 50,000 to 4,000 years ago, confirming what other evidence has told us about human migration patterns.

Another interesting bit in the article is the conclusion that 4% of indigenous Australian DNA seems to have come from interbreeding with another hominin species! Remember, we discussed the intermixing between humans and Neanderthals, who contributed 1-6% of the DNA of non-Africans (the percent depends on the region of the world being examined). This is a link (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. to another Guardian article on humans interbreeding with Neanderthals.

The original study was published in Nature. If you are interested in the details of genetic analysis, you can check out the original article here (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..