Indigenous Australians are the oldest society on Earth confirms world first DNA study

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[h=1]Indigenous Australians are the OLDEST society on Earth, confirms world-first DNA study[/h]

• Genomic study reveals all non-Africans stem from single migration event
• Researchers say Papuan and Aboriginal genomes trace back to this as well
• Study also suggests a group dispersed in Australia 4,000 years ago
• This group shaped culture and language, then mysteriously disappeared

By Cheyenne Macdonald For Dailymail.com
Published: 18:13 GMT, 21 September 2016

The most detailed genetic study of Indigenous Australians confirms the group is the oldest continuous civilisation on the planet.
The civilisation dates back more than 50,000 years ago, according to a new paper that was published alongside two others in Nature.
The research claims that around 72,000 years ago, a group of migrants began the journey out of Africa that would ultimately shape the future of humanity.
This single wave of travellers gave rise to all non-African populations alive today.

New evidence supports the idea that there was just ‘one exit event’ – but once out of Africa, the Papuan and Aboriginal ancestors branched off early on, with some eventually reaching Australia, where they would remain isolated from the rest of the world for thousands of years

[h=3]KEY FINDINGS OF THE STUDY[/h] The researchers found that the 'overwhelming majority' of non-African populations stem from a single migration from Africa 72,000 years ago.
Along with this, they found evidence that Aboriginal Australians are descended directly from the first people to inhabit Australia.
And, the DNA revealed traces of DNA which suggest modern humans interbred with an early human species that has not yet been characterized as they migrated through Asia.
The researchers also say there appears to be a mysterious dispersal that occurred in Australia roughly 4,000 years ago.
While these migrants shaped speech and thought, they experienced a 'ghost-like' disappearance.


In the first major genomic study of Aboriginal Australians, researchers have confirmed that along with European and Asian ancestral groups, Papuan and Australian genomes too can be traced back to this migration.
The new evidence supports the idea that there was just ‘one exit event’ – but once out of Africa, the Papuan and Aboriginal ancestors branched off early on, with some eventually reaching Australia, where they would remain isolated from the rest of the world for thousands of years.
In the study, published to the journal Nature, an international team of experts collaborated with elders and leaders from various Aboriginal Australian communities, along with numerous other organizations.
The researchers sequenced the genomes of 83 Aboriginal Australians and 25 Papuans from New Guinea, using DNA from saliva to reveal new insight on the origins of modern human populations.
‘The study addresses a number of fundamental questions about human evolution – how many times did we leave Africa, when was Australia populated, and what is the diversity of people in and outside Australia?’ said Professor Eske Willerslev, who led the research and holds posts at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, the Sanger Institute and the University of Copenhagen.
‘Technologically and politically, it has not really been possible to answer those questions until now.
'We found evidence that there was only really one wave of humans who gave rise to all present-day non-Africans, including Australians.’
The analysis led to a number of findings on the population of Australia, which has one of the longest histories of continuous human occupation.
While earlier theories have suggested that Papuans and Australians originated from an earlier migration event, the new study indicates this was not the case.

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‘Our results suggest that, rather than having left in a separate wave, most of the genomes of Papuans and Aboriginal Australians can be traced back to a single ‘Out of Africa’ event which led to modern worldwide populations,’ said Dr Manjinder Sandhu, a senior author from the Sanger Institute and University of Cambridge.
‘There may have been other migrations, but the evidence so far points to one exit event.’

The research suggests all modern humans living today emerged from a single migration wave and then interbred with other extinct human species (illustrated)

In the study, an international team of experts collaborated with elders and leaders from various Aboriginal Australian communities. Pictured, Professor Eske Willerslev speaks with Aboriginal elders in the Kalgoorlie area in southwestern Australia in 2012

Australia has been occupied by humans for roughly 50,000 years, and the researchers say the Papuan and Australian ancestors split off from the first migration group about 58,000 years ago.
The European and Asian ancestral groups did not become distinct until around 42,000 years ago.
After this initial split, the researchers say several other divergences occurred; the Papuans and Aboriginal Australians split roughly 37,000 years ago.
Many years later, these populations became physically separated by water.
It wasn’t until much later that the Aboriginal communities regained contact with the rest of the world’s populations, first with Asian communities and then European travelers in the 18th century.
[h=3]'GHOST-LIKE' DISAPPEARANCE OF CULTURE-SHAPING GROUP[/h] The researchers say there may have been an internal migration within Aboriginal culture roughly 4,000 years ago.
Today, about 90 percent of Aboriginal communities speak languages in the 'Pama-Nyungan' linguistic family.
According to the researchers, these people stem from the founding population, which split from the Papuans 37,000 years ago before further diverging.
But, experts say the Pama-Nyungan languages are much younger than this, and can be traced back just 4,000 years.
This has long baffled scientists, who wondered how two separately isolated communities came to share the same younger language family.
While previous theories suggested this was the result of a second migration, the study now shows that this is not the case.
The researchers found signs of a 'tiny gene flow,' which indicates migration from north-east Australia across the continent.
This may have occurred at around the time the Pama-Nyungan language and stone tool technologies emerged.
The researchers say these migrants likely had a strong influence on the culture of the continent - but, genetic evidence of these people has disappeared even as their culture and language persists.


According to the researchers, most Aboriginal communities were genetically isolated from each other by 31,000 years ago, likely the result of environmental barriers, including an impassable desert.
‘The genetic diversity among Aboriginal Australians is amazing,’ said Assistant Professor Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas, from the Universities of Copenhagen and Bern, a lead author on the study.
‘Because the continent has been populated for such a long time, we find that groups from south-western Australia are genetically more different from north-eastern Australia, than, for example, Native Americans are from Siberians.’
The study also revealed that traces of DNA from an ancient, extinct human species fund in Aboriginal Australians could be from a species that has not yet been characterized.

This illustration shows the interaction between modern and archaic human lineages according to a second study published today, showing traces of an early out of Africa expansion that can still be seen within the genome of modern Sahul populations in Papua New Guinea

Around 72,000 years ago, a group of migrants began the journey out of Africa that would ultimately shape the future of humanity. According to new research, this single wave of travelers gave rise to all non-African populations alive today. A stock image is pictured

It was previously thought that this stemmed from encounters with a group known as Denisovans.
‘We don’t know who these people were, but they were a distant relative of Denisovans, and the Papuan/Australian ancestors probably encountered them close to Sahul,’ said Professor Willerslev.
Along with this, the researchers say a mysterious dispersal may have occurred within Aboriginal culture roughly 4,000 years ago from the northeastern part of Australia – but these migrants, who are thought to have defined the way in which people spoke and thought, disappeared in a ‘ghost-like’ manner.
‘It’s a really weird scenario,’ Professor Willerslev said. ‘A few immigrants appear in different villages and communities around Australia.
‘They change the way people speak and think; then they disappear, like ghosts. And people just carry on living in isolation the same way they always have.
[h=3]WHAT THE FOUR STUDIES TELL US ABOUT HUMAN ANCESTRY [/h] The Simons Genome Diversity Project study
After analysing DNA from 142 populations around the world, the researchers conclude that all modern humans living today can trace their ancestry back to a single group that emerged in Africa 200,000 years ago.
They also found that all non-Africans appear to be descended from a single group that split from the ancestors of African hunter gatherers around 130,000 years ago.
The study also shows how humans appear to have formed isolated groups within Africa with populations on the continent separating from each other.
The KhoeSan in south Africa for example separated from the Yoruba in Nigeria around 87,000 years ago while the Mbuti split from the Yoruba 56,000 years ago.
The Estonian Biocentre Human Genome Diversity Panel study
This examined 483 genomes from 148 populations around the world to examine the expansion of Homo sapiens out of Africa.
They found that indigenous populations in modern Papua New Guinea owe two percent of their genomes to a now extinct group of Homo sapiens.
This suggests there was a distinct wave of human migration out of Africa around 120,000 years ago.
The Aboriginal Australian study
Using genomes from 83 Aboriginal Australians and 25 Papuans from New Guinea, this study examined the genetic origins of these early Pacific populations.
These groups are thought to have descended from some of the first humans to have left Africa and has raised questions about whether their ancestors were from an earlier wave of migration than the rest of Eurasia.
The new study found that the ancestors of modern Aboriginal Australians and Papuans split from Europeans and Asians around 58,000 years ago following a single migration out of Africa.
These two populations themselves later diverged around 37,000 years ago, long before the physical separation of Australia and New Guinea some 10,000 years ago.
The Climate Modelling study
Researchers from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa used one of the first integrated climate-human migration computer models to re-create the spread of Homo sapiens over the past 125,000 years.
The model simulates ice-ages, abrupt climate change and captures the arrival times of Homo sapiens in the Eastern Mediterranean, Arabian Peninsula, Southern China, and Australia in close agreement with paleoclimate reconstructions and fossil and archaeological evidence.
The found that it appears modern humans first left Africa 100,000 years ago in a series of slow-paced migration waves.
They estimate that Homo sapiens first arrived in southern Europe around 80,000-90,000 years ago, far earlier than previously believed.
The results challenge traditional models that suggest there was a single exodus out of Africa around 60,000 years ago.


‘This may have happened for religious or cultural reasons that we can only speculate about. But in genetic terms, we have never seen anything like it before.’
The research is one of three genetic studies looking at prehistoric human ancestry that are published today in the journal Nature.
In a second study, researchers at the Estonian Biocentre, Tartu, Estonia, examined the genomes of modern people living in Papua New Guinea.
They conclude that indigenous populations there can trace two per cent of their genomes to an earlier but now extinct group of Homo sapiens that left Africa around 120,000 years ago.
This suggests the ancestors of those living in Papua New Guinea may have met and bred with these earlier pioneers before they died out.
However, most populations living outside Africa appear to not have encountered these earlier Homo sapien migrants.
The third genetic study found that all modern humans living today appear to be descended from a single population of Homo sapiens who appeared in Africa 200,000 years ago.

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