Posted on 05/07/2007 7:17:22 PM PDT by blam
Aborigines came out of Africa, study shows
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Last Updated: 2:24am BST 08/05/2007
Australia's Aborigines were formed from a single group of migrants who left Africa about 55,000 years ago, DNA evidence suggests.
Once there the settlers evolved in relative isolation, developing genetic characteristics not found anywhere else and leading to unusual fossil finds that threatened the "out of Africa" hypothesis of human origins.
DNA tests show that Aborigines did not develop separately but were part of the migration from Africa 55,000 years ago
However, research published today confirms that all modern humans stem from a single group of Homo sapiens who emigrated from Africa and spread throughout Eurasia.
A report by a team led by Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin Universities published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says Australia's Aboriginal population sprang from the same tiny group of settlers. This group replaced early kinds of humans -such as Neanderthals and Homo erectus, who had already colonised Australia - rather than interbreeding with them.
To trace ancestry back 50,000 years or more the team analysed the mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome DNA, which is only passed down the male line of Aboriginal Australians and Melanesians from New Guinea.
This data was compared with DNA patterns associated with early humans in an international effort with researchers in Oxford, California, and Estonia.
Dr Peter Forster, a geneticist who led the research, said: "For the first time, this evidence gives us a genetic link showing that the Australian Aboriginal and New Guinean populations are descended directly from the same specific group of people who emerged from the African migration."
At the time of the migration, Australia and New Guinea were joined by a land bridge and the region was only separated from the main Eurasian land mass by narrow straits such as Wallace's Line in Indonesia. The land bridge was submerged about 8,000 years ago.
Dr Toomas Kivisild, from Cambridge, co-author of the report, said: "The evidence points to relative isolation after the initial arrival, which would mean any significant developments in skeletal form and tool use were not influenced by outside sources."
How did that happen?
Hmmmmmm....
Seas don’t part forever.
Halliburton.
It’s Bush’s fault..
Global warming, the Ice Age ended, the ice melted and the seas rose.
Is this series or hugh?
So we are all african - somethings?
Lots of neat findings coming from DNA.
And there will be more to come!
Geez, they have dark skin, broad noses, and heavy brows. Who’d of thunk it???
Like Bob Marley sings, mon, we are “One Blood”.
Look at the nasion notch!
The last Ice Age ended despite the fact that SUVs and the internal combustion engine were 8000 years in the future. What the hell ask Al Gore, I am sure he can explain it and also ask him why the polar ice caps on Mars are melting. I did not realize that Exxon was hard at work on Mars destroying the planet.
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This may come as a shock but all of our ancestors (this white boys also) that came out of Africa were black. The color of one's skin is an evolutionary function of your local environment as is the nominal body structure and facial and body appearance. There are some people in India that are very black and genetically Caucasians, they are black for the same reason Norwegians are very very very white. Skin color is a function of the local environment.
Somehow the out of Africa model doesn’t explain the obvious greater development of Asians over other races. Africans appear to be the most primitive of life forms and the Asians appear to be the most advanced IMHO. Yet humans emigrated from Africa? I think someday another cradle of civilization will be found in China.
Then it flooded thanks to the caveman contribution to globull warming. Cavemen then had to buy carbon credits to cook Mammoths and send smoke signals. The Al Gore cave had a very small carbon footprint and he used only one leaf to wipe.
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