A lock of hair has helped scientists to piece together the genome of Australian Aborigines and rewrite the history of human dispersal around the world.
DNA from the hair demonstrates that indigenous Aboriginal Australians were the first to separate from other modern humans, around 70,000 years ago.
This challenges current theories of a single phase of dispersal from Africa.
By contrast, those in the Middle East and North Africa moved out to colonise Europe and Asia about 24,000 years ago. There are also interesting patterns in terms of Neanderthal and Denisovan intermingling with modern man discussed in the article. Aborigines have about the same amount of Neanderthal genes as Europeans, indicating that the interbreeding happened prior to their migration.
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