Topic ID #13973 - posted 9/22/2011 12:47 PM
Jennifer Palmer
Webmaster
Lock of Aboriginal Man's Hair Unlocks Secrets of Human Migration
Jennifer Palmer
Webmaster
Lock of Aboriginal Man's Hair Unlocks Secrets of Human Migration
Wynne Parry, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 22 September 2011 Time: 02:01 PM ET
Tuft of Aboriginal hair, Aboriginal Australian genome hints at how humans dispersed
Scientists sequenced the genome, or genetic blueprint, contained in this hair, donated to a British anthropologist in 1921, and compared it to the genomes sequenced from Asians, Europeans and Africans. They found evidence that Aborigines are descendants of an early wave of people leaving Africa, who branched off from their Eurasian ancestors
Using a genetic blueprint contained in a nearly century-old lock of hair from an Aboriginal Australian man, scientists have found evidence the Aborigines are descendants of an early wave of people who left Africa and branched off on their own as long ago as 75,000 years, before Asians and Europeans became distinct groups.
This means Aborigines are likely one of the oldest continuous populations outside Africa, they write.
In 1921, the hair was donated to British anthropologist Alfred Cort Haddon when he was traveling through Golden Ridge near the town of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, according to Morten Rasmussen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and one of the international team researchers.
The researchers used this sample — which became the first genome sequenced from an Aboriginal Australian — to look far back into human history and clarify how our ancestors spread around the world from Africa, where they are believed to have emerged.
Read more here.
Wynne Parry, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 22 September 2011 Time: 02:01 PM ET
Tuft of Aboriginal hair, Aboriginal Australian genome hints at how humans dispersed
Scientists sequenced the genome, or genetic blueprint, contained in this hair, donated to a British anthropologist in 1921, and compared it to the genomes sequenced from Asians, Europeans and Africans. They found evidence that Aborigines are descendants of an early wave of people leaving Africa, who branched off from their Eurasian ancestors
Using a genetic blueprint contained in a nearly century-old lock of hair from an Aboriginal Australian man, scientists have found evidence the Aborigines are descendants of an early wave of people who left Africa and branched off on their own as long ago as 75,000 years, before Asians and Europeans became distinct groups.
This means Aborigines are likely one of the oldest continuous populations outside Africa, they write.
In 1921, the hair was donated to British anthropologist Alfred Cort Haddon when he was traveling through Golden Ridge near the town of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, according to Morten Rasmussen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and one of the international team researchers.
The researchers used this sample — which became the first genome sequenced from an Aboriginal Australian — to look far back into human history and clarify how our ancestors spread around the world from Africa, where they are believed to have emerged.
Read more here.
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