An Aboriginal Australian Genome Reveals Separate Human Dispersals into Asia

2011

Rasmussen, Morten

Guo, Xiaosen

Kivisild, Toomas

Zhai, Weiwei

Eriksson, Anders

Manica, Andrea

Orlando, Ludovic

De La Vega, Francisco M

Tridico, Silvana

Metspalu, Ene

Nielsen, Kasper

Avila-Arcos, Maria C

Wang, Yong

Moreno-Mayar, J Victor

Muller, Craig

Dortch, Joe

Gilbert, M Thomas P

Lund, Ole

Wesolowska, Agata

Karmin, Monika

Weinert, Lucy A

Wang, Bo

Li, Jun

Lohmueller, Kirk E

Tai, Shuaishuai

Xiao, Fei

Hanihara, Tsunehiko

van Driem, George

Jha, Aashish R

Ricaut, Francois Xavier

de Knijff, Peter

Migliano, Andrea B

Gallego Romero, Irene

Kristiansen, Karsten

Rasmussen, Simon

Lambert, David M

Brunak, Soren

Forster, Peter

Brinkmann, Bernd

Nehlich, Olaf

Bunce, Michael

Richards, Michael

Gupta, Ramneek

Bustamante, Carlos D

Krogh, Anders

Albrechtsen, Anders

Foley, Robert A

Lahr, Marta M

Balloux, Francois

Sicheritz-Ponten, Thomas

Villems, Richard

Nielsen, Rasmus

Wang, Jun

Willerslev, Eske

Skotte, Line

Lindgreen, Stinus

Metspalu, Mait

Jombart, Thibaut

Journal Article

en

Publication

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

United States of America

10.1126/science.1211177

une:20931

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.

link

Science, 334(6052), p. 94-98

1095-9203

0036-8075

94

98