German geneticists have found evidence of substantial gene flow between Indian populations and Australia about 4,230 years ago.
Their study, published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also reveals a common origin for Australian, New Guinean and the Philippine Mamanwa populations. These populations followed an early southern migration route out of Africa, while other populations settled in the region only at a later date.
Australia holds some of the earliest archaeological evidence for the presence of modern humans outside Africa, with the earliest sites dated to at least 45,000 years ago, making Australian aboriginals one of the oldest continuous populations outside Africa. It is commonly assumed that following the initial dispersal of people into Sahul – joint Australia-New Guinea landmass – and until the arrival of the Europeans late in the 18th century, there was no contact between Australia and the rest of the world.
Now, the team analyzed genetic variation from across the genome from aboriginal Australians, New Guineans, island Southeast Asians, and Indians. The findings suggest substantial gene flow from India to Australia 4,230 years ago.
“Interestingly, this date also coincides with many changes in the archaeological record of Australia, which include a sudden change in plant processing and stone tool technologies, with microliths appearing for the first time, and the first appearance of the dingo in the fossil record. Since we detect inflow of genes from India into Australia at around the same time, it is likely that these changes were related to this migration,” said study lead author Dr Irina Pugach of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
The analysis also reveals a common origin for populations from Australia, New Guinea and the Mamanwa – a Negrito group from the Philippines – and they estimated that these groups split from each other about 36,000 years ago.
“This finding supports the view that these populations represent the descendants of an early ‘southern route’ migration out of Africa, while other populations in the region arrived later by a separate dispersal,” added senior author Dr Mark Stoneking, also from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
This also indicates that Australians and New Guineans diverged early in the history of Sahul, and not when the lands were separated by rising sea waters around 8,000 years ago.
4,000 years ago, Australia was no longer connected to the mainland as it had been during the Ice Age. The immigrants thus crossed the ocean, arriving by boat (Gunter Senft / MPI for Psycholinguistics)
Their study, published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also reveals a common origin for Australian, New Guinean and the Philippine Mamanwa populations. These populations followed an early southern migration route out of Africa, while other populations settled in the region only at a later date.
Australia holds some of the earliest archaeological evidence for the presence of modern humans outside Africa, with the earliest sites dated to at least 45,000 years ago, making Australian aboriginals one of the oldest continuous populations outside Africa. It is commonly assumed that following the initial dispersal of people into Sahul – joint Australia-New Guinea landmass – and until the arrival of the Europeans late in the 18th century, there was no contact between Australia and the rest of the world.
Now, the team analyzed genetic variation from across the genome from aboriginal Australians, New Guineans, island Southeast Asians, and Indians. The findings suggest substantial gene flow from India to Australia 4,230 years ago.
“Interestingly, this date also coincides with many changes in the archaeological record of Australia, which include a sudden change in plant processing and stone tool technologies, with microliths appearing for the first time, and the first appearance of the dingo in the fossil record. Since we detect inflow of genes from India into Australia at around the same time, it is likely that these changes were related to this migration,” said study lead author Dr Irina Pugach of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
The analysis also reveals a common origin for populations from Australia, New Guinea and the Mamanwa – a Negrito group from the Philippines – and they estimated that these groups split from each other about 36,000 years ago.
“This finding supports the view that these populations represent the descendants of an early ‘southern route’ migration out of Africa, while other populations in the region arrived later by a separate dispersal,” added senior author Dr Mark Stoneking, also from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
This also indicates that Australians and New Guineans diverged early in the history of Sahul, and not when the lands were separated by rising sea waters around 8,000 years ago.
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