Journal Article

An Aboriginal Australian Genome Reveals Separate Human Dispersals into Asia

Jombart, Thibaut, Lindgreen, Stinus, de Knijff, Peter, Gupta, Ramneek, Migliano, Andrea B, Manica, Andrea, Wang, Yong, Dortch, Joe, Lahr, Marta M., Orlando, Ludovic, Nielsen, Kasper, Ávila-Arcos, María C., Brunak, Søren, Lund, Ole, Nielsen, Rasmus, Eriksson, Anders, Foley, Robert A., Richards, Michael, Sicheritz-Pontén, Thomas, Muller, Craig, Moreno-Mayar, J. Víctor, Wang, Bo, Jha, Aashish R., Weinert, Lucy A., Kivisild, Toomas, Ricaut, François-Xavier, Nehlich, Olaf, Hanihara, Tsunehiko, Forster, Peter, Lambert, David M., Romero, Irene Gallego, Krogh, Anders, Villems, Richard, Tai, Shuaishuai, De La Vega, Francisco M., Wesolowska, Agata, Karmin, Monika, Metspalu, Ene, Xiao, Fei, van Driem, George, Brinkmann, Bernd, Zhai, Weiwei, Kristiansen, Karsten, Balloux, Francois, Bustamante, Carlos D., Albrechtsen, Anders, Metspalu, Mait, Tridico, Silvana, Willerslev, Eske, Wang, Jun, Rasmussen, Simon, Guo, Xiaosen, Li, Jun, Gilbert, M. Thomas P., Skotte, Line, Rasmussen, Morten, Lohmueller, Kirk E., Bunce, Michael

2011

Overview

We present an Aboriginal Australian genomic sequence obtained from a 100-year-old lock of hair donated by an Aboriginal man from southern Western Australia in the early 20th century. We detect no evidence of European admixture and estimate contamination levels to be below 0.5%. We show that Aboriginal Australians are descendants of an early human dispersal into eastern Asia, possibly 62,000 to 75,000 years ago. This dispersal is separate from the one that gave rise to modern Asians 25,000 to 38,000 years ago. We also find evidence of gene flow between populations of the two dispersal waves prior to the divergence of Native Americans from modern Asian ancestors. Our findings support the hypothesis that present-day Aboriginal Australians descend from the earliest humans to occupy Australia, likely representing one of the oldest continuous populations outside Africa.

• Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science,The American Association for the Advancement of Science,American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
• Subject: Aboriginal Australians / Admixtures / Africa / African Continental Ancestry Group / Alleles / American Indians / ancestry / Animals / Asia / Asia, Eastern / Asian Continental Ancestry Group / Asian People - genetics / Asians / Australians / Biological and medical sciences / Biological anthropology / Black People / Classical genetics, quantitative genetics, hybrids / Computer Simulation / Contamination / Dispersal / DNA, Mitochondrial / DNA, Mitochondrial - genetics / East Asia / Emigration and Immigration / Ethnic Groups / Ethnicity - genetics / European Continental Ancestry Group / Far East / Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology / Gene Flow / Gene Frequency / Genetics / Genetics of eukaryotes. Biological and molecular evolution / Genetics, Population / Genetics, Population - methods / genome / Genome, Human / Genome, Mitochondrial / Genomes / Genomics / Hair / Haplotypes / Highlands / Hominidae / Hominidae - genetics / Human / Humanities and Social Sciences / Humans / Indigenous peoples / Life Sciences / Linkage Disequilibrium / Male / Mobility / Modeling / Native peoples / nucleotide sequences / Oceanic Ancestry Group / Phylogeny / Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide / Populations and Evolution / Sequence Analysis, DNA / We they distinction / Western Australia / White People - genetics