Genomes link aboriginal Australians to Indians

Mingling of genes four millennia ago suggests continent was not isolated after all.

Some aboriginal Australians can trace as much as 11% of their genomes to migrants who reached the island around 4,000 years ago from India, a study suggests. Along with their genes, the migrants brought different tool-making techniques and the ancestors of the dingo, researchers say¹.

This scenario is the result of a large genetic analysis outlined today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences¹. It contradicts a commonly held view that Australia had no contact with the rest of the world between the arrival of the first humans around 45,000 years ago and the coming of Europeans in the eighteenth century.

“Australia is thought to represent one of the earliest migrations for humans after they left Africa, but it seemed pretty isolated after that,” says Mark Stoneking, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who led the study.

Irina Pugach, a postdoctoral researcher in Stoneking’s laboratory, discovered signs of the Indian migration by comparing genetic variation across the entire genomes of 344 individuals, including aboriginal Australians from the Northern Territory, highlanders from Papua New Guinea, several populations from Southeast Asian and India and a handful of people from the United States and China.

Pugach confirmed an ancient association between the genomes of Australians, New Guineans and the Mamanwa — a Negrito group from the Philippines. These populations diverged around 36,000 years ago, suggesting that they all descended from an early southward migration out of Africa.


GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe

Thanks Theoria. Some aboriginal Australians can trace as much as 11% of their genomes to migrants who reached the island around 4,000 years ago from India... the migrants brought different tool-making techniques and the ancestors of the dingo... It contradicts a commonly held view that Australia had no contact with the rest of the world between the arrival of the first humans around 45,000 years ago and the coming of Europeans in the eighteenth century The old view is absurdly stupid anyway, as is Clovis-First-and-Only. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

"Neanderthal stone tools were rudimentary compared to modern Homo Sapiens from the same period of time."

Roman chariots were rudimentary compared to a Ford Mustang...the Romans were no less intelligent than people today.

We are Neanderthals.

Every feature that is used to describe Neanderthals can be found in Modern Humans today. For example, some Australian Aboriginies have a more severe brow ridge than did the Neanderthals, etc.

The Neanderthal Theory

“Roman chariots were rudimentary compared to a Ford Mustang...the Romans were no less intelligent than people today.”

I am comparing human and neanderthal stone tools from the same period of time. Roman chariots and Ford Mustang were a few thousand years apart. Besides even homo erectus had very intelligent tools.

“We are Neanderthals”

No we are not. Human and neanderthal are two completely separate branches of human sub species that followed two completely separate paths of evolution. We had a common ancestor and we may have exchanged genetic material but neanderthal are most definitely not our direct ancestors.

Neanderthal physical structure, bone structure and size of the skull is totally different from modern human being.

“the human mind has not grown in thousands of years; the genetic wiring for the brain’s nueral net has been there a long time; humans have always been smart, inventive, creative, curious, determined and willing to change”

It recently came to my attention that children with ADD/ADHD have brains that do not stop producing and expanding neural growth until their mid-20’s. Normal brain growth of neural networks ceases and begins pruning of unused networks about age 19-20, but not so for ADD/ADHD.

So, humans may not be experiencing a “growth”, per se, in the size of the brain, but there may be something about ADD and ADHD that should be carefully looked at and NOT be treated with psychotropic drugs.

My nephew was tested twice for ADD and found to be borderline. We did not allow him to be treated with drugs and took him out of private school to home school. He thrived, as his education was driven by his curiosity, and not teacher curriculum. He completed his schooling at age sixteen and tested out with an IQ of 157.

“My nephew was tested twice for ADD and found to be borderline. We did not allow him to be treated with drugs and took him out of private school to home school. He thrived, as his education was driven by his curiosity, and not teacher curriculum.”

some of what you say does not surprise me

some recent studies have shown that autistic children and child prodigies have something in common, while the autistic has that commonality in excess over the usual trial prodigy - the ability to carry on very concentrated mental focus on something - something they are doing mentally

the autistic has trouble stopping and channeling it, and becomes either stuck or reacts in a sort of “shut down” to try and stop it

the child prodigy is able to channel the ability to achieve great and concentrated focus and put it to great use

due to the great ability of their mental focus, both have deficits in socializing, and again the autistic more so

ADD and ADHD seem to have some element of the opposite of that

amd maybe therefore ADD/ADHD researchers ought to look at the autistic/child prodigy research and see if, in terms the brain sites/brain chemisty/brain function/neural networks identified as relevant and in common to the autistic and child prodigy groups, that they find the opposite going on with persons with ADD/ADHD

I sincerely believe there are not one-size-fits-all solutions to children with these problems.

A close friend has a child who early-on was recognized as autistic. By the time he was nearing primary school age his verbal language skills were about that of a two year old. On the other hand he had a fantastic level of visual perception ability and he began drawing.

The visually amazing thing with his drawings were that the human and animal figures he drew were nearly, though not quite Picasso-like, but when you looked at the photo or image her drew his own version from, you realized that what he drew WAS totally recognizable as an odd version of the original; some element or elements of the human or animal figures often appeared to be as if he could see the original from a totally different viewing angle than it was depicted - but you still recognized how the essence resembled the original

for him, kindergarten through 2nd grade home schooling provided no improvement in his verbal or socializing skills, he was frequently like austistic/ADD simultaneously - he would ramble verbally (nearly like baby-babble) in the same manner over and over, while physically active and while physically withdrawn, and he often teeter-tottered between the two, sometimes continuing the same rambling while he drew something

after he was “mainstreamed” in the third grade, he started improving

he still lags in some indicators with his 4th grade peers, but keeps improving and he still continues his art

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

	Genetic Genealogy >> PING <<
Send FReepmail if you want on/off GGP list Marty = Paternal Haplogroup O(2?)(M175) Maternal Haplogroup H
GG LINKS: African Ancestry DNAPrint Genomics FamilyTree DNA GeneTree Int'l Society of Genetic Genealogy mitosearch Nat'l Geographic Genographic Project Oxford Ancestors RelativeGenetics Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation Trace Genetics ybase ysearch
The List of Ping Lists