🚀 go-pugleaf

By Laura Matthews | September 24, 2011 12:28 PM EDT 



A 100-year-old Aborigine lock of hair is leading scientists to rewrite
the history of human migration out of Africa as we know it.
 
Researchers thought that all modern humans came from a single
migration wave from Africa into Europe, Asia, and Australia. However,
new research done on an Australian Aborigine lock of hair shows that
early humans colonized Asia in two waves before settling in Europe and
Asia.



For first time researchers isolated DNA from a lock of Aboriginal hair
and is using it to learn about the genetics of the first Australians.




Scientists believe that Aborigines' forebears probably made their way
across the world 24,000 years before another wave led to Europe's and
Asia's settlement.
 
Researchers analyzed hair donated by an Aborigine man from the western
Australia to a British anthropologist over a century ago. Their
analysis showed that Aborigines' ancestors separated from the first
populations in Africa between 62,000 and 75,000 years ago then
eventually settled in Australia. Europe and Asia were first settled as
many as 38,000 years ago, the researchers said.
 
"Aboriginal Australians descend from the first human explorers," said
Professor Eske Willerslev from the University of Copenhagen, who led
the study published in the journal Science. "While the ancestors of
Europeans and Asians were sitting somewhere in Africa or the Middle
East, yet to explore their world further, the ancestors of Aboriginal
Australians spread rapidly; the first modern humans traversing unknown
territory in Asia and finally crossing the sea into Australia. It was
a truly amazing journey that must have demanded exceptional survival
skills and bravery." 


A journey of that sort would require the first inhabitants of
Australia to cross from Asia to Sahul, the ancient continent that
comprised of Australia, New Guinea and before the sea level rise at
the end of the Ice Age.
 
However, Dr. Richard Klein, a paleoanthropologist at Stanford
University, told The New York Times that there isn't any
archaeological evidence for boats. Therefore, some researchers are
still puzzled by the Aborigine's occupation of Australia.
 
The New York Times' article also noted that evidence of the stone
tools found there showed simpler tools in comparison to the Upper
Paleolithic tools found in Europe around the same time frame.
 
"I don't understand why they looked so primitive," Klein said.
 
Morten Rasmussen, the study's lead author and an expert in
evolutionary biology, told Bloomberg that people will continue to
fight for the single dispersion theory.
 
"I think the data now fits with the archaeological records better,"
Rasmussen said. "We'll probably need a few more studies."
 
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/219309/20110924/hair-shows-aborigine-ancestors-were-first-out-of-africa-australia.htm


--- Posted via news://freenews.netfront.net/ - Complaints to news@netfront.net ---