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Revealing the prehistoric settlement of Australia by Y chromosome and mtDNA analysis - PubMed

  • ️Mon Jan 01 2007

Revealing the prehistoric settlement of Australia by Y chromosome and mtDNA analysis

Georgi Hudjashov et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007.

Abstract

Published and new samples of Aboriginal Australians and Melanesians were analyzed for mtDNA (n=172) and Y variation (n=522), and the resulting profiles were compared with the branches known so far within the global mtDNA and the Y chromosome tree. (i) All Australian lineages are confirmed to fall within the mitochondrial founder branches M and N and the Y chromosomal founders C and F, which are associated with the exodus of modern humans from Africa approximately 50-70,000 years ago. The analysis reveals no evidence for any archaic maternal or paternal lineages in Australians, despite some suggestively robust features in the Australian fossil record, thus weakening the argument for continuity with any earlier Homo erectus populations in Southeast Asia. (ii) The tree of complete mtDNA sequences shows that Aboriginal Australians are most closely related to the autochthonous populations of New Guinea/Melanesia, indicating that prehistoric Australia and New Guinea were occupied initially by one and the same Palaeolithic colonization event approximately 50,000 years ago, in agreement with current archaeological evidence. (iii) The deep mtDNA and Y chromosomal branching patterns between Australia and most other populations around the Indian Ocean point to a considerable isolation after the initial arrival. (iv) We detect only minor secondary gene flow into Australia, and this could have taken place before the land bridge between Australia and New Guinea was submerged approximately 8,000 years ago, thus calling into question that certain significant developments in later Australian prehistory (the emergence of a backed-blade lithic industry, and the linguistic dichotomy) were externally motivated.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.

Coastlines of Australia and NG ≈50,000 years ago. After the initial spread of H. sapiens out of Africa to Sahul (the formerly connected land mass of Australia and NG), the principal processes are differentiation of the mitochondrial DNA clades Q and S. Subsequent to that process, there is little migration within Sahul other than Q from NG to Australia. The genetic isolation of Australia is in the main very clearly evident already before the Sahul land bridge disappears ≈8,000 years ago. See Results and Discussion for further details.

Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.

Simplified tree of autochthonous Near Oceanian mtDNA branches. East and Southeast Asian, and Indian specific clusters are added for comparison. Mutations relevant to Australia, Melanesia, and NG are shown along the branches. Only branches identified by at least two complete mtDNA sequences are included. For data and a detailed tree, see

SI Fig. 4

.

Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.

Simplified Y chromosomal phylogeny including the recently discovered Australia-specific marker M347. For data and a detailed tree, see

SI Fig. 5

.

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