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<< News >> DNA confirms coastal trek to Australia

Submitted by coldrum on Sunday, 27 September 2009  Page Views: 2492

DiscoveriesDNA evidence linking Indian tribes to Australian Aboriginal people supports the theory humans arrived in Australia from Africa via a southern coastal route through India, say researchers.

The research, lead by Dr Raghavendra Rao from the Anthropological Survey of India, is published in the current edition of BMC Evolutionary Biology.

One theory is that modern humans arrived in Australia via an inland route through central Asia but Rao says most scientists believe modern humans arrived via the coast of South Asia. But he says there has never been any evidence to confirm a stop-off in India until now.

Rao and colleagues sequenced the mitochondrial genomes of 966 people from traditional tribes in India. They report that several of the Indians studied had two regions of their mitochondrial DNA that were identical to those found in modern day Australian Aboriginal people.

Rao and colleagues used special computer programs to predict that a common ancestor existed, between the Indian population and Aboriginal Australians, up to 50,000 years ago.

Skeletal remains, dating back between 40 - 60,000 years from Lake Mungo in New South Wales, also support the theory that modern human arrived in Australia at least half a century ago, he says.

He says now that a mitochondrial DNA link has been found between tribal Indian populations and Aboriginal Australians it would be interesting to see if a connection exists through the Y chromosome, where DNA is passed only from fathers to sons.

For more, see www.abc.net.au.

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"DNA confirms coastal trek to Australia" | Login/Create an Account | 1 comment
  
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Evidence of Australia's first human occupation found by coldrum on Monday, 04 January 2010
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Evidence of Australia's first human occupation found

Evidence of what could be Australia's earliest human occupation has been found on the fringe of desert in the country's remote northwest, according to archaeologists.

Peter Veth, of the Australian National University, said an artefact dated at between 45,000 and 50,000 years old found near the shores of Lake Gregory could be the start of a 25-year study into Australia's first humans.

"This is the first evidence of human activity ... in the arid northwest of the continent which can be dated to a time before the last great Ice Age," he said in a statement.

It was likely to be of "the same order of antiquity" as the oldest human remains found in the country, discovered in the country's eastern state of New South Wales in 1969 and dated at around 40,000 years old, he said.

"It's just important because it's an early site full stop," remarked Dr Veth of the discovery, a piece of stone from which flakes have been struck to form tools.

"To get an early date there and then to get evidence of repeat occupation is highly significant."

Dr Veth said the archaeologists had been extremely conservative in their dating of the artefact, which was found in 2008, adding that the site was likely to be a rich source of data in the years to come.

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091210/world-news/evidence-of-australias-first-human-occupation-found?
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