Australian aborigines may be first to populate world outside Africa

See http://www.science20.com/news_articles/were_australian_aborigines_first_explorers_leave_africa-82929 for genomics study claiming Australian aborigines descended from a different migration out of Africa than occurred later.

Research headed by professor Eske Willerslev from the Center for BioGenetics

at the University of Copenhagen, shows that modern humans colonized the world twice.

This is in contrast to previous scientific belief that humanity discovered

the world outside Africa in one wave of emigration.

And the reseach shows that the aboriginals, Australia's indigenous population,

are today's sole descendants of this first wave of emigration.

The four fathers of the aboriginals emigrated out aproximately

70,000 year ago, and reached Australia around 50,000 years ago.

It's actually quite amazing to imagine the journey that the

ancestors of the aboriginal australians took. I mean,

you have to remember at this time, 70,000 years ago,

all of Asia was completly unexplored land for anatomical modern humans.

So, while our ancestors, the asians and the europeans,

were sitting somewhere in Africa or potentially in the Middle East,

not daring, you can say, exploring the world,

these guys actually swept across this completely untouched land

reaching Australia at least 50,000 years ago and crossing the sea.

The study is derived from the DNA of a 100 year old lock of hair like this.

The lock of hair belongs to an aboriginal man

from the Goldfield region of south Western Australia.

The research team, from the University of Copenhagen,

has succeded in isolating and mapping the genome from the lock of hair.

This is possible because the DNA encapsulated in hair is quite well protected

from the ravages of time.

And the genome analysis has proved that modern humans,

homo sapiens, populated the world in two waves.

The first wave, from about 70,000 years ago, reaches all the way to Australia.

The second wave, mixes with relatives of the aboriginals in Asia,

but never reaches Australia.

This really changes the conception of how genetically similar people are outside Africa.

It now turns out that they are more diverse

than we thought and, you know, one or two years from now

it's very likely I think, that we will see other studies showing that

there might have even been additional migration waves

into Asia and Europe, that is not recognized today.