Free Republic

Data links early settlers to African diaspora DIFFERENT STORIES: While genetic research puts this land on a main route of early humans' dispersion, anthropologists tie early settlements to the Pearl River Delta By Wang Hsiao-wen STAFF REPORTER Sunday, Aug 29, 2004,Page 2 Long before Portuguese sailors put "Formosa" on the world map, and long before Chinese people crossed the dark current to set up home here, this land was inhabited by Austronesian Aborigines for thousands of years. Multigenetic analysis reveals that Austronesian tribes arrived as early as 14,000 years ago. According to Marie Lin (ªL¶ý²ú), who conducted the research as...

An Ancient Link to Africa Lives on in Bay of Bengal By NICHOLAS WADE Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, a remote archipelago east of India, are direct descendants of the first modern humans to have inhabited Asia, geneticists conclude in a new study. But the islanders lack a distinctive genetic feature found among Australian aborigines, another early group to leave Africa, suggesting they were part of a separate exodus. The Andaman Islanders are "arguably the most enigmatic people on our planet," a team of geneticists led by Dr. Erika Hagelberg of the University of Oslo write in the journal Current...