Comments on: How Was Australia Populated?

By: Craig

Craig — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 01:09:00 +0000

I have always been facinated by the idea of the Aborigines arriving in Australia via foot from Africa. Unfortuantly I have yet to find research or even a source that questions the possibility. It seems highly probable. When facial reconstruction people work their magic on ancient African skeletons, the image appears hauntingly close to that of the Aborigine. I believe this idea is one that should be looked into seriously.

By: Evelyn

Evelyn — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 01:51:00 +0000

Just a quick note: Indigenous Australians are actually referred to as Aborigines, not Aboriginals. ‘Aboriginal’ is the adjective used to describe things such as Aboriginal art or culture. So you can either say that someone is an Aboriginal person or that they are an Aborigine.

I had this drilled into me by my history teacher when I was a kid, so I can’t forget… I’m sure this post would make her proud!

Excellent post though, it’s good to see something on here about Australia!

By: Julie

Julie — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:20:00 +0000

What about Pangaea (or however that’s spelled)? I always thought people explained populations on all of the continents by saying that they all used to be connected & then split. Why couldn’t people have been on the Australia part when it split away, just like they were everywhere else?

By: nihil

nihil — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:06:00 +0000

There have been quite a few experiments to test theories about ancient sea travel. One famous one is the Kon-Tiki 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands. Check out the Wikipedia link in my name it has info on mitochondrial DNA of Polynesian peoples along with the expedition infomation.

My personal opinion is that it’s asinine to assume that people couldn’t or didn’t do something in ancient times. It seems like the more we assume about what they could and couldn’t do the more we are proved incorrect.

By: Stane

Stane — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:19:00 +0000

This article misses the point slightly. Sahul story explains how humans crossed over from New Guinea to Australia, but the real mystery is how they got to Papua New Gunea/Sahul in the first place.

Namely in the middle of Indonesian archipelago exists something called Wallace Line. Its great deep water divide which was never above sea surface even at points of lowest possible sea level. Its the place where Australian and Indonesian tectonic plates meat. Wallace Line represents a boundary between bird and mammal species of Sahul and Asian origin. This divide has to have been crossed by some kind of raft, as it couldn’t have been walked over.

By: gus

gus — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:36:00 +0000

All the genetic crap aside, if one raft drifted, many more did. Viola, question answered. That is, until more Clovis points are found in an entirely different area.

By: BassMan

BassMan — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:44:00 +0000

I agree with Mary about the genome. Surely sombody has already undertaken this and we just don’t know it.
In the Americas they can trace human migration partly by the dying off of megafauna. Although, many Native American groups aren’t keen on the idea, it seems pretty clear that their ancestors were immgrants across the Bering land bridge.
If you use the Sahul time thingy and go back 23, 45 and 60,000 years it’s easy to see the aboriginals crossing from New Guinea.
Do we have any idea of how they got to New Guinea?

By: Diana

Diana — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:31:00 +0000

Mary, this is from the genetic genealogist website:

The results suggest that the Australian aboriginals are descendants of the same emigrant group that left Africa 50,000 to 70,000 years ago and populated Europe and Asia. At least from the small number of samples analyzed for this study, there does not seem to be any DNA contribution from Homo erectus.

The uniformity of the sequences suggests that once humans migrated into the region there was little other gene flow. This might explain why the Australian and New Guinean populations share phenotypic features that are unique to the region.

Me again: there is a lot of controversy surrounding aboriginal genome projects – you can do a google search and find lots of info on it.

By: Mary Thorman

Mary Thorman — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:46:00 +0000

What has been found in sequencing the genomes of various groups such as Australia’s aboriginals and Indonesians and Asians and Africans? When I saw my first photos of Australian aboriginals many years ago, I was struck with how they seemed to be a combination of all the various racial groups known to man. In other words, I thought they might well represent the best model for the first true Homo sapiens. Very unscientific, but a study of the genomes would be most illuminating.

By: Claire

Claire — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:55:00 +0000

certainly fascinating. the best bet is the sea level theory. it makes the most sense, but it would still be awesome if they managed it on rafts. regardless, they were an inventive and intelligent group of humans. Of course, there is still debate over how the western hemisphere was populated as well.

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