Mungo Man DNA test settles row on Aborigines here first
Jun 7, 2016 15:46:00 GMT 9.5
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Post by Willow on Jun 7, 2016 15:46:00 GMT 9.5
Scientists have dismissed a theory that the Aborigines were not the first Australians after reanalysing genetic material from the continent’s oldest human skeleton.
An Australian-led team has found that DNA attributed to Mungo Man, a hunter-gatherer who lived in western NSW more than 40,000 years ago, came from contamination introduced since the skeleton’s 1974 discovery.
The findings, published in the journal PNAS, refute 15-year-old claims that Mungo Man came from an extinct line of humans who preceded the Aborigines.
The earlier research found Mungo Man’s DNA bore no similarity to other ancient skeletons or to any modern people. This called into question the “out of Africa” theory of human evolution and raised the possibility Australia was settled by waves of anatomically modern humans from southern Asia.
The claims have been highlighted by opponents of constitutional moves to recognise indigenous people as first Australians. “There may have been people in Australia prior to the Aborigines,” Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm said last June.
The new study used “second generation” DNA sequencing to reanalyse the DNA of Mungo Man and about 20 specimens from the same region. It found Mungo Man and most of the other remains had no recoverable DNA. It was able only to replicate one of the original study’s sequences, a genome belonging to one of the researchers.
Mungo Man also yielded DNA from four other people of European ancestry who had and led the skeleton.
But another set of remains, found a few hundred metres from Mungo Man, furnished a complete “mitochondrial” genome similar to those of modern Aborigines. It is now believed to be the first genome of an ancient Aborigine.
Mitochondrial DNA, derived from bacteria-like organelles that power the cells, is much easier to sequence than “chromosomal” DNA which contains about 200,000 times as much genetic information.
Corresponding author David Lambert, of Griffith University in Brisbane, said the original researchers had done their best with the technology available at the time. But the new study provided “compelling support” that Aborigines were Australia’s first inhabitants.
Local elder Michael Young said the finding was fantastic news. “It’s confirmation of what we were always taught through our ancestors,” he said. “New sequencing (is) putting the facts in front of a lot of other ideas about how Australia was settled.”
An Australian-led team has found that DNA attributed to Mungo Man, a hunter-gatherer who lived in western NSW more than 40,000 years ago, came from contamination introduced since the skeleton’s 1974 discovery.
The findings, published in the journal PNAS, refute 15-year-old claims that Mungo Man came from an extinct line of humans who preceded the Aborigines.
The earlier research found Mungo Man’s DNA bore no similarity to other ancient skeletons or to any modern people. This called into question the “out of Africa” theory of human evolution and raised the possibility Australia was settled by waves of anatomically modern humans from southern Asia.
The claims have been highlighted by opponents of constitutional moves to recognise indigenous people as first Australians. “There may have been people in Australia prior to the Aborigines,” Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm said last June.
The new study used “second generation” DNA sequencing to reanalyse the DNA of Mungo Man and about 20 specimens from the same region. It found Mungo Man and most of the other remains had no recoverable DNA. It was able only to replicate one of the original study’s sequences, a genome belonging to one of the researchers.
Mungo Man also yielded DNA from four other people of European ancestry who had and led the skeleton.
But another set of remains, found a few hundred metres from Mungo Man, furnished a complete “mitochondrial” genome similar to those of modern Aborigines. It is now believed to be the first genome of an ancient Aborigine.
Mitochondrial DNA, derived from bacteria-like organelles that power the cells, is much easier to sequence than “chromosomal” DNA which contains about 200,000 times as much genetic information.
Corresponding author David Lambert, of Griffith University in Brisbane, said the original researchers had done their best with the technology available at the time. But the new study provided “compelling support” that Aborigines were Australia’s first inhabitants.
Local elder Michael Young said the finding was fantastic news. “It’s confirmation of what we were always taught through our ancestors,” he said. “New sequencing (is) putting the facts in front of a lot of other ideas about how Australia was settled.”