Scientists Trace an Ancient Connection Between Amazonians and Australasians

Scientists Trace an Ancient Connection Between Amazonians and Australasians

David Reich of Harvard, the senior author of a paper published Tuesday in the journal Nature, said the DNA pattern was “surprising and unexpected, and we weren’t really looking for it.”

Some people in the Brazilian Amazon are very distant relations of indigenous Australians, New Guineans and other Australasians, two groups of scientists who conducted detailed genetic analyses reported Tuesday. But the researchers disagree on the source of that ancestry.

The connection is ancient, all agree, and attributable to Eurasian migrants to the Americas who had some Australasian ancestry, the scientists said.

But one group said the evidence is clear that two different populations came from Siberia to settle the Americas 15,000 or more years ago. The other scientific team says there was only one founding population from which all indigenous Americans, except for the Inuit, descended and the Australasian DNA came later, and not through a full-scale migration. For instance, genes could have flowed through a kind of chain of intermarriage and mixing between groups living in the Aleutian Islands and down the Pacific Coast.

I personally feel that the more they dig into this the more they'll realize the native populations of the Americas are older than they'll want to admit. Also, Ancient Pacific seafarers should be considered imho of course. A little off course, Pun intended, is the mystery of Easter Island and how at one time there were two distinct races on that tiny spec of an island. One wonders how that occurred.

Many over the years here and elsewhere have attempted to show similarities/connections between Australian rock paintings and South American art of similar design and technique.

What I find rather interesting is how we find an ancient Neanderthal cousins DNA *Denisovan in various Pacific populations. Now we have signs of mixtures in Native Americans. These seems to indicate that at some point in prehistory Denisovan descendants were migrating and flourishing which at some later point mixed with later waves Homo Sapiens and were eventually bred out of existence and aggregated down both in appearance/physical attributes and dominant DNA standing by adding more and more H Sapien mixing.

Siberian and Australian mixture. Seems like two very unlikely points of mixture. Yet, Here we are seeing just that. Some will argue the descendant of both mixed at later periods while others believe they are remnants of a much more ancient mixing. The question for me is even though the oceans were much lower than they are now were there ancient seafaring populations from earlier periods in prehistory?

I postulated this type of mixing in ancient prehistory in one of my earlier threads, *Who Were the Ancient Megalithic Builders?


Interesting topic related Blog
Denisovan DNA in the islands, and an Australian genome

David Reich and colleagues today report on the persistence of Denisova-like ancestry in island Southeast Asia and Australia (citation not yet available). Meanwhile, Morten Rasmussen and colleagues (citation not yet available) report on the whole-genome sequencing of hair from an Aboriginal Australian who lived some 100 years ago.

The most obvious story: These data utterly destroy the hypothesis of a single out-of-Africa colonization of Southeast Asia by modern humans. Many human geneticists have argued our present pattern of diversity originated in a wave of successive founder effects coming from a single recent African origin. They were wrong.

Instead, we can turn to a complex model with successive dispersals and episodes of population mixture.

I always get this weird feeling that there was a rich indigenous culture spanning the globe before a "white race" came out of nowhere (probably Mars lol) and colonized the 5 nations of Britain, U.S., New Zealand, Canada and Australia.

I love a good conspiracy!

a reply to: SLAYER69

What I think is never really taken into account is the vast time scale involved here. Its not generational, its thousands of years, especially when you look at what scientists are telling us about the actual age of homo sapiens - that's now 200,000 years. We seem to be able to find precious little to show exactly what our ancestors were up to because there are so little remains left in tact anywhere. I can't subscribe, especially logically to the idea that we did nothing except hunt, gather, breed and fight to survive up to our accepted biblical dates etc. We can find the remains of other cultures but we all seem to stop/start at a very much later point that the origins of our species occurred.

Our modern approach to history has been tied to biblical ideas and unfortunately basically attempts to deny anything over 2000-3000 years albeit 6000 odd seems to fit some people's biblical ideal and is grudgingly noted. In the UK our schools are mostly church schools so this has been ingrained since state education started up, so is a relatively new concept we don't confront. What were we doing and how were the ancients so knowledgeable about things like the precession of the equinoxes - which would have taken thousands of years of painstaking observations which were then transposed into the dimensions of most of our stone age buildings? It doesn't make any sense at all, so I am not surprised at the mix of peoples you are telling us research has highlighted. Great thread S&F well deserved.

a reply to: SLAYER69

Well the race came from an ooze tha existed all over the Earth right? We live in a Power Rangers Universe correct? Maybe Ninja turtles? That is mutation.

I'm not religious but noone can explain apes to humans biologically, simple as that, it's always a great leap in biology. So this theory of=r finding is not surprising. Huans were made out of nowhere, everywehre, while there was life already present. Case closed.

originally posted by: Shiloh7
a reply to: SLAYER69
I can't subscribe, especially logically to the idea that we did nothing except hunt, gather, breed and fight to survive up to our accepted biblical dates etc. We can find the remains of other cultures but we all seem to stop/start at a very much later point that the origins of our species occurred.

Why can't you subscribe to the idea that homo sapiens just simply lived off the land (which indigenous people had a spiritual connection with) until recently?

The practice of farming the land was started out of necessity, rather than desire, which had the unexpected effect of causing civilizations to develop.

Besides, most modern peoples lives are far less fulfilling than nomadic peoples were. They were constantly stimulated by the thrill of hunting and gathering and performing deeply spiritual rituals..... These days, most people just wake up and have a shower, work mindlessly for 8 hours straight, go home and watch some tv, sleep for a few hours, then repeat for 50 years straight..... lol, yet you claim it was nomadic people who were doing nothing of significance.

Anyway..... Its an interesting find, no idea how it occurred though. If only we had a time machine that could observe how we spread across the earth.

originally posted by: iDope
a reply to: SLAYER69

Well the race came from an ooze tha existed all over the Earth right? We live in a Power Rangers Universe correct? Maybe Ninja turtles? That is mutation.

I'm not religious but noone can explain apes to humans biologically, simple as that, it's always a great leap in biology. So this theory of=r finding is not surprising. Huans were made out of nowhere, everywehre, while there was life already present. Case closed.

So where is the science that backs your theory? How can you say case closed when it certainly is anything but?

Look at apes and look at humans. We are pretty similar you have to admit. The further back we go the more ape like we were. You have seen all the human remains found and how much we have changed through our evolutionary development as humans. If we have been changing that much over the course of a million or so years as a species then how is it so unreasonable that in the period of 25 million years before that (that is the oldest ape fossil we know of to date) and possibly even longer evolution nurtured a new species? It could have been one small group of creatures in some location that was isolated for a very long time indeed, like the unique species found on Galapagos, that concentrated a certain dominant DNA strain, isolated for many millions of years of generations that became the beginnings of the human species. Yes, just one isolated tribe of apes could have pulled off that genetic feat. It just took a long time. They may have even not pulled it off and required yet more mixing with yet another isolated tribe who had evolved in a different way and once the two bred together the human evolved. Like I said 25 million years plus is a long time for all these things to happen.

Don't ever say case closed because it quite clearly is not. I'm saying this for your benefit that you try to keep an open mind as we learn about our origins, which we are still doing and in the very early stages of.

Definitely agree that there appears to be a lack of understanding on truly how old native races were. I find it no surprise for a connection between these two races - in fact, we're all probably going to be interlinked (even minutely) with a lot of ancient races.

For me, it's now tracing migration patterns and understanding why this occurred. I'm sure we can never truly find all migrations, why inter-racial bonds might have developed but it's amazing how a massive community on one extensive continent, separated into different cultures, ideologies and ways of living onto many scattered continents!

a reply to: SLAYER69
Hi Slayer,
Thanks for posting,
That is an important piece of work.
Both groups came up with similar conclusions based on similar data, but diverged on what their conclusions mean.
It should not surprise anyone, who follows this field of study, that their would be some sign of earliest peoples into the pacific, within some Native American groups.
But, yet again both groups have ignored the overwhelming amount of archeological data, that shows humans have been in the new world far longer than the 23K(wilersev) and 15k(reich) entry windows the authors postulate.

The newest data shows that the desert surfaces at the Calico dig sites have a minimum age of 120k, 100kya sites in san diego, 60kya sites in CA, all show their were people here before Australia and oceana.

eventually ill finish a thread, ive been working on, for some time that details the evidence for a movement of Early Americans, back into the old world very early, maybe multiple waves, going back 70 k years.





S & F

With the time spans involved there would be little connection between the peoples on a cultural level, only on the genetic level, the common point of departure likely 40,000 years ago. Perhaps a few isolated populations drifting again into proximity over time through ocean faring or overland migration.
How ever as Homo Sapiens Sapiens we all share quite a bit anyway.
a reply to: SLAYER69

It's known that the Clovis technology was transferred to Europe from the Americas about 7,000 YBP.
a reply to: punkinworks10

a reply to: starswift
Actually the transfer of a pre Clovis lithic tradition to the old world happened 17-20k years ago.
The laurel leaf blade pattern appears among solutrean assemblages, around 17k years ago, while the laurel leaf appears, in Pennsylvania, around 23k years ago, the Cinmar point was made from rhyolite that came from eastern Pennsylvania.

originally posted by: Rosinitiate
I always get this weird feeling that there was a rich indigenous culture spanning the globe before a "white race" came out of nowhere (probably Mars lol) and colonized the 5 nations of Britain, U.S., New Zealand, Canada and Australia.

I love a good conspiracy!

There were no white people prior to around 15,000 years ago and the evolution from dark to light skin is completely understood to have evolved in humans who originated in Africa
en.wikipedia.org...

I was talking about Clovis.
a reply to: punkinworks10

originally posted by: starswift
It's known that the Clovis technology was transferred to Europe from the Americas about 7,000 YBP.
a reply to: punkinworks10

Do you have a link or citation for that? I'm just wondering because I find it a little odd that a lithic technology that have been dead and unused for 6KA would suddenly make a resurgence across the Atlantic. Unless I'm missing something here?

originally posted by: Marduk

originally posted by: Rosinitiate
I always get this weird feeling that there was a rich indigenous culture spanning the globe before a "white race" came out of nowhere (probably Mars lol) and colonized the 5 nations of Britain, U.S., New Zealand, Canada and Australia.

I love a good conspiracy!

There were no white people prior to around 15,000 years ago and the evolution from dark to light skin is completely understood to have evolved in humans who originated in Africa
en.wikipedia.org...

Yeah, yeah sure, likely story...

Having read it though, this is a little hard to accept:

Furthermore, the European mutation is associated with the largest region of diminished genetic variation in the CEU HapMap population, suggesting the possibility that the A111T mutation may be the subject of the single largest degree of selection in human populations of European ancestry.[1] It is theorised that selection for the derived allele is based on the need for sunlight to produce the essential nutrient vitamin D. In northerly latitudes, where there is less sun, greater requirement for body coverage due to colder climate, and frequently, diets poor in vitamin D, making lighter skin more suitable for survival.[10] Tests for this variation have obvious application to forensic science.

It's kind of hard to accept that after 100's of thousands of years, 15,000 years ago a random mutation occurred and created a lighter skinned race because of migrating in "northerly altitudes" and lacking Vitamin D. If such conditions were the case it would have happened long ago and more frequently. But than again....

originally posted by: starswift
I was talking about Clovis.
a reply to: punkinworks10

yes, as was I.
By 7k BP, clovis had run its course and depending on where in north America had vanished and or morphed into subsequent "daughter" traditions, some of which may not be daughters at all, but represent convergent cutting technologies of different groups. The solutreans had disappeared in Europe, 15kya, and were replaced by the magdeleneans, who used a completely different tool technology.

Guess it's been too long since read up on the stuff.
a reply to: punkinworks10

Makes a lot of sense in numerous ways.

Guess that would account for some of the artwork such as statues in South America that originally were suspect(said to be from people who later traveled to the area) that do not resemble the current populations appearance.

originally posted by: Rosinitiate

originally posted by: Marduk

originally posted by: Rosinitiate
I always get this weird feeling that there was a rich indigenous culture spanning the globe before a "white race" came out of nowhere (probably Mars lol) and colonized the 5 nations of Britain, U.S., New Zealand, Canada and Australia.

I love a good conspiracy!

There were no white people prior to around 15,000 years ago and the evolution from dark to light skin is completely understood to have evolved in humans who originated in Africa
en.wikipedia.org...

Yeah, yeah sure, likely story...

Having read it though, this is a little hard to accept:

Furthermore, the European mutation is associated with the largest region of diminished genetic variation in the CEU HapMap population, suggesting the possibility that the A111T mutation may be the subject of the single largest degree of selection in human populations of European ancestry.[1] It is theorised that selection for the derived allele is based on the need for sunlight to produce the essential nutrient vitamin D. In northerly latitudes, where there is less sun, greater requirement for body coverage due to colder climate, and frequently, diets poor in vitamin D, making lighter skin more suitable for survival.[10] Tests for this variation have obvious application to forensic science.

It's kind of hard to accept that after 100's of thousands of years, 15,000 years ago a random mutation occurred and created a lighter skinned race because of migrating in "northerly altitudes" and lacking Vitamin D. If such conditions were the case it would have happened long ago and more frequently. But than again....

Quite possible, as more recent studies share, that Neanderthal influence helped that along as it did with characteristics seen in Denisovan mixed populations.

a reply to: Subaeruginosa

Besides, most modern peoples lives are far less fulfilling than nomadic peoples were. They were constantly stimulated by the thrill of hunting and gathering and performing deeply spiritual rituals

With all due respect and not to be critical but what's your basis for concluding that ancient nomads had more fulfilling lives? Fulfillment is completely subjective. Seems to me that these sorts of opinions — which I see expressed frequently — arise from exposure to the archetypal "noble savage," unspoiled by technological progress, which has existed in literature going back to at least the Roman Empire and the equally old and ubiquitous Golden Age fallacy, stemming from peoples' tendency to believe that life in the past was closer to a completely arbitrary ideal. Perhaps the most popular manifestation of the latter being the Garden of Eden (or American conservatives' view of the 1950's).

While a constant struggle for survival might be stimulating, I'm not really sure that it would be more fulfilling. Skeletal remains typically point to people living short, hard lives.

a reply to: theantediluvian

I agree. I remember having this conversation with some girl, I think people some how think they would have the same understanding and knowledge of things like they would in today's world. Well, this girl though how awesome it would be to live in renaissance times, and while we can look back and see it was a pretty interesting time that's probably not a perspective shared by most people back then.

Most people would be some ditch digging serf, working back braking work with disease and rats all over the place, only to die in your late 20's.

...that doesn't sound nice at all to me. Actually sounds kind of miserable, lol.