On May 7, 2007, an international research team investigating the mitochondrial DNA of the aboriginal people of Australia and New Guinea
reported in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences on what their results show about the population of those two modern countries.
The results do not contradict archaeology dates obtained from sites such as Lake Mungo and Devil's Lair, but they do suggest that the countries were settled by a small founder group who left Africa with everybody else between 70,000 and 50,000 years ago, arrived in New Guinea and Australia about 50,000 years ago, and were subsequently isolated by the rising sea levels.
The results do not contradict archaeology dates obtained from sites such as Lake Mungo and Devil's Lair, but they do suggest that the countries were settled by a small founder group who left Africa with everybody else between 70,000 and 50,000 years ago, arrived in New Guinea and Australia about 50,000 years ago, and were subsequently isolated by the rising sea levels.
- The History of Aboriginal Australia, Who, When, How, and From Where were Australia and New Guinea first settled?
- Brief Bibliography of Australia's Settlement
- Lake Mungo, Australia
- Devil's Lair, Australia
Comments
And the older Ica Stones?
I don’t know anything about the Ica Stones , and would love some references to read up about them. Can you pass some along?
Kris
Julio sent me word that Ica Stones are actually from Peru and have nothing to do with Australia.
Hi K. Ktist, Just a thought, I have gave you a few, so the people came from africa 50 to 70,000 years ago, I will go along with that, but why do you all not tell us when the rest of the primates came their? From the discovery channel and the other wonderful channels their are a real rainbow of primates not including the human primates in Australia, they are many species of them I think, but just like the rest of the world only human primates migrated the other many primates just what, did they evolve on all parts of the world? but us humans had to migrate, what a lie you all tell us and hided the truth I am to dumb to understand why, it is not fair for all prymates to evolve all over the whole world, but us human primates have to travel to get to other parts of the world. Please tell me why. Bill Davidsaon
I’m still in doubt that Australian Aborigines crossed open ocean during their migration to the continent. They couldn’t spot the continent from Sundaland. Moreover, 50 thousand years ago, I don’t think humans already had the capability to cross open ocean, they haven’t even invented wheel yet. It’s just too risky to cross an ocean, unless they are certain as to what lies beyond the horizon. What do you think about the possibility of ancient land bridge between Sundaland and Sahulland? That actually there were no such crossing? Thanks for your answer.
For Bill Davidson – No, there aren’t any primates in Australia other than humans, except in zoos. You are thinking of marsupials of various sorts that superficially resemble lemurs, which ARE primates but which do not live in Australia. The Australian animals you are thinking of all have pouches for carrying their young.