Aubrey Lynch, an Indigenous elder from the Goldfields area, said: “This study confirms our beliefs that we have ancient connections to our lands and have been here far longer than anyone else.”


Scientists were able to trace the remarkable journey made by intrepid ancient humans by sifting through clues left in the DNA of modern populations in Australia and Papua New Guinea. The analysis shows that their ancestors were probably the first humans to cross an ocean, and reveals evidence of prehistoric liaisons with an unknown hominin cousin.

Prof Eske Willerslev, an evolutionary geneticist who led the work at the University of Copenhagen, said: “This story has been missing for a long time in science. Now we know their relatives are the guys who were the first real human explorers. Our ancestors were sitting being kind of scared of the world while they set out on this exceptional journey across Asia and across the sea.”

The findings appear in one of four major human origins papers published in Nature this week, which together give an unprecedented insight into how humans first migrated out of the African continent, splintered into distinct populations and spread across the globe.

Willerslev’s findings, based on a new population analysis of 83 Indigenous Australians and 25 Papuans, shows that these groups can trace their origins back to the very first arrivals on the continent about 50,000 years ago and that they remained almost entirely isolated until around 4,000 years ago. “They are probably the oldest group in the world that you can link to one particular place,” said Willerslev.

En route to Australia, early humans would have encountered a motley assortment of other roving hominin species, including an unknown human relative who has now been shown to have contributed around 4% to the Indigenous Australian genome. Previously, scientists have discovered that prehistoric couplings have left all non-Africans today carrying 1-6% of Neanderthal DNA.

Willerslev said the latest findings added to the view that Neanderthals and other now extinct hominins, traditionally portrayed as low-browed prehistoric thugs, were “in reality not particularly different” from our own ancestors.

Adding to this picture, a second study found that the advent of modern human behaviours around 100,000 years ago, indicated by cave art and more sophisticated tools, does not appear to have been accompanied by any notable genetic mutations.

“Your genome contains the history of every ancestor you ever had,” said Swapan Mallick, a geneticist at Havard Medical School who led the analysis of the genomes of people from 142 distinct populations.

The study also suggests that the KhoeSan (bushmen) and Mbuti (central African pygmies) populations appear to have split of from other early humans sooner than this, again suggesting that there was no intrinsic biological change that suddenly triggered human culture.

“There is no evidence for a magic mutation that made us human,” said Willerslev.

Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London, said the findings would be controversial in the field, adding: “It either means that the behaviours were developed earlier, they developed these behaviours independently, they acquired them through exchanges of ideas with other groups, or the estimated split times are too old.”

Willerslev’s study also resolves the apparent discrepancy between genetic findings implying that Indigenous populations have been in Australia for tens of thousands of years and the fact that the languages spoken by these populations are only around 4,000 years old. “You see a movement of people spreading across the continent and leaving signatures across the continent,” said Willerslev. “That is the time that this new language has spread. It’s a tiny genetic signature. It’s almost like two guys entering a village and saying ‘guys, now we have to speak another language and use another stone tool and they have a little bit of sex in that village and then they disappear again.”

Responses to "Indigenous Australians most ancient civilisation on Earth, DNA study confirms "

  1. geopelia says:

    How much more advanced were they than the Neanderthals?

  2. Weird question really. With systems of Law, advanced natural navigation techniques including song-lines and celestial charting, numerous 3000+ year old trade relationships, deeply spiritual and diverse culture and language systems, highly sustainable systems of agriculture and the widest geographical plan for land management in existence just to name a few... that's how much.

  3. Unknown says:

    Looks to me as if someone does not quite understand the term, "civilization."

  4. @Unknown - A culture that lasts 50,000 years is a lot more civilized than one that will be lucky if it survives a few thousand years

  5. John says:

    How do you build a culture that lasts sustainably 50,000 years? Our culture will be lucky if it survives another 100 years. The interesting thing about this research is that it shows the Aborigines, unlike every other culture on the planet, have not been displaced in that 50,000 years by war or famine. They built a culture in which war was unknown and there was no starvation!

  6. The world should not continue to overlook the Australian government's injustices. Those days the British didn't want to keep the convicts among them, so they sent those convicts to Australia. Now days the world is approving the Australia's actions. This shows how much the Western countries have fallen when it comes to moral values. This is an insult to the 21st century humanity. This will continue to backfire on the democratic countries, especially on the Western countries.

    After Australian parliament passed the bill to go to war in Iraq I wrote that 'Australia can't afford to go to war while Australia's backyard in an absolute mess.' Since then I have been facing all kinds of hardships. The government decided to delete my citizenship without a court order due to my writings. Please read to know my struggles as a human rights writer in Australia.

  7. Elisabethr says:

    'Guys'? As usual, when guys fantasize about our early human ancestors, they imagine them all to be 'guys'. All depictions are of males hunting large animals, even when it is known that in hunter/gatherer societies the majority of food is procured by women. But of course it was ' the guys' who set out on an adventure and the only task for the gals was to produce the next generation of adventurous fire-making male culture heroes.

  8. Elisabeth says:

    Hmmm, from the pictures it seems that even all modern Aboriginals are 'guys'...

  9. Anonymous says:

    And most are old us some children and young people.

  10. Anonymous says:

    Were the isolated Sentineleses tested?

  11. And, more significantly, most stable human society within its ecosystem.

  12. Wow! I wonder how the Bible set will take this news?

  13. And when will science publicly identify the American Aboriginal people that the explorers found here in America? You know the tribal people they called "colored" because they were not identified as Africans yet they were found living all across America when Europeans discovered it. The people called African Americans were not called that until 1988. Who are they really?

  14. Unknown says:

    beautiful people

  15. Mad Merlin says:

    All this bullshit about 'coming' from & 'going to' The Aboriginal peoples traveled far & wide. They went 'over there' & 'came back' Wake up to this rubbish about everything & everyone 'coming out of Africa' It is a load of monkey doo doo! The aboriginals visited the Egyptians 1,000's of years ago...[have a look @ what Carter 'discovered' in an old crate he found @ the bottom of the steps into the Tut's anti chamber...They were using this crate as a step...It was full of BOOMERANGS; Yellow box Eucalyptus Resin; Kangaroo Muscle Sinews, as well as Ochres...have a look, the evidence IS out there...They also visited Poland...Where a Red Ochre Goanna [Wiradjuri Nation] was found painted [with Aust. Aboriginal Ochres] on a returning Boomerang made out of Mammoth a cave Poland..Look it up..There are many many instances of our ancestors traveling up & down the american coast. Stop blindly accepting the pat Anthro Apoligists version of Aboriginal history [always displayed as 13,000 odd years]..THEY DO NOT WANT OUR ANCESTORS TO BE THE FIRST!!!!...Otherwise they would perhaps need to REALLY APOLOGISE for their abhorrent behaviours...Check out the Mitchell Library in Sydney Australia ...where it was discovered, on Malcom Fraser's [former Prime Minister] property in rural Victoria, a comprehensive AQUAPONICS SYSTEM!!! a canal was dug 80 odd kilometres to allow Eels to breed & spawn...& of course the stone cottage!!! [only 13,000 odd years old]..The list goes on & on & on...OPEN YOUR EYES & INQUIRING MINDS!!! STOP ACCEPTING BIASED GENETIC 'research'....Mad Merlin

  16. Fascinating. Thank you.

  17. Unknown says:

    The most peacefull peole on earth says “Civilised” to me this concept that they were not is a modern human misconception! Waring ,bloodthirsty,disease spreading white people are definately not Civilised even yet! These people were for at least 50,000 years! They had no war,no poverty,everyone was looked after,everyone had enough! We have alot to learn from this beautiful Culture,the oldest continual Civilisation on Earth!

  18. It is good to see the study and encouragement of Australian Aboriginal languages being taken seriously these days.

  19. Zenta Zebergs says:

    This is one of the most refreshing and profound research findings and discussion I have read in a long while. We must learn to respect the Original People of this Land and their Culture. The Australian Aboriginal People and their ancestors are the Wisdom-Holders of more than we can imagine. Aho!

  20. What an illuminating discovery! I long for a modern culture that returns to indigenous peoples and their wisdom, one that honors them, seeks their counsel, and which humbly acknowledges the harm done and the debt of atonement we owe. (To Mad Merlin: thank you for the additional information you shared above!)

  21. AMJR says:

    voila... proof is in the pudding ... and finally, these wonderful people will have their proper place in world history as the grandparents of the entire human race.... we should rejoice and revel in this news and learn all that we can possibly learn from them about who we really are.

  22. In flash of a few hundred years, such beautiful people and their culture has been smashed to make way for greed, pollution and racism.

  23. paul reid says:

    This isn't accurate. The San people of Southern Africa are the oldest people on earth.

  24. smith says:

    the San people in Africa were among the first people

  25. The essential 'first' in this research, is the prove possibility that human behaviour was adopted a lot earlier than first thought. owot? Therefore, humanity may be a lot older than previously thought, thus, giving hunting and gathering a new epoch, meaning and majesty.

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