For those of you who share my interest in hominids and early humans, there were a couple of interesting articles published this week, as discussed in this NatureNews article. One study is about a DNA-sequencing of an Aboriginal Australian, on the basis of a hair sample of 90 years ago. The idea is that this would exclude the possibility of interbreeding with people of European descent. The conclusion is that Aboriginal Australians seem to be descendants of the first wave of human migration out of Africa, whereas the majority of inhabitants of mainland Asia would be descendants of a second, later wave of migration.
Another study identifies traces of Denisovan DNA in Aboriginal Australians; Denisovans are another line of hominids, parallel to Neanderthals and modern humans. As is known, traces of Neanderthal DNA were found in all human populations outside Africa, but until now Papua New Guineans were the only modern human population whose ancestors were known to have interbred with Denisovans. Interesting conclusions can be drawn from these findings:
[T]his pattern hints at at least two waves of human migration into Asia: an early trek that included the ancestors of contemporary Aboriginal Australians, New Guineans and some other Oceanians, followed by a second wave that gave rise to the present residents of mainland Asia. Some members of the first wave (though not all of them) interbred with Denisovans. However, the Denisovans may have vanished by the time the second Asian migrants arrived. This also suggests that the Denisovan's range, so far linked only to a cave in southern Siberia, once extended to Southeast Asia and perhaps Oceania.
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