New DNA Analysis Shows Aboriginal Australians Are the World's Oldest Society
The group was the first to split after a single wave of migration out of Africa took place between 51,000 and 72,000 years ago, study shows
By Danny Lewis
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
SEPTEMBER 23, 2016
For centuries, Aboriginal Australians have said they belonged to the oldest sustained civilization on the face of the Earth, citing their culture and history of oral storytelling that stretches back tens of thousands of years. Now, one of the most extensive analyses of Indigenous Australian DNA to date suggests that they've been right all along.
The ancestors to modern humans first arose in Africa, but the question of where and when they began spreading out from the continent has long plagued scientists and archeologists alike. While Homo sapiens are far from the first human species to begin exploring other parts of the planet (other, older species like the Neanderthals and Denisovans made it out first), the question has long been whether the ancestors of modern non-Africans left in waves or all at once, Emily Benson reports for the New Scientist.
Nailing down the approximate times that one’s ancestors left Africa is tricky business. Previous research has shown that humans began splitting into different genetic groups about 200,000 years ago, long before they first began exploring other continents. By analyzing DNA from 787 people from 270 modern cultures spread across the world, a group of scientists identified and tracked ancient genetic mutations that they believe mark when different ethnicities diverged as their ancestors settled across the world, Benson reports.
Using this genetic tracing, the researchers suggest that the first Homo sapiens began leaving Africa between 51,000 and 72,000 years ago. And the ancestors of Indigenous Australians were the first group to split off from that migration. While the ancestors of European and Asian people diverged about 42,000 years ago, the precursors to today’s Indigenous Australians and Papuans diverged 58,000 years ago to head east, George Dvorsky reports for Gizmodo.
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a water barrier, which makes the ancestors of indigenous Australians likely the first humans to cross open sea in a boat or raft.
Lower sea levels due to glaciation exposed continental shelf land so that current islands in southern Asia were linked together and to the mainland except for a gap of about 50 to 70 miles beteen those Asian land areas and Australia. So they were either good at boating or excellent swimmers. 