Where did Australia's aboriginals come from? Genomic data reveals clues.
Today's aboriginals are descended from the first humans to enter Australia, and they did it far earlier than scientists previously thought, a new DNA study reveals. Understanding the history of Aboriginal Australians, their origins and how their population changed over some 50,000-plus years has always been an enormous challenge. Many Aboriginal people have their own origin stories. Gudjugudju, a Gimuy Yidinji Elder from the rainforest people around Cairns, says: The story which has been passed down from generations tells of three migrations that have occurred over many thousands of years, one of us coming to this ancient land first, then another at a period after the last Ice age which saw the formation of the Great Barrier Reef, the other is of a migration out of Cairns that went back through the Cape into the Torres Strait to PNG and further. Equally, scientific narratives of Aboriginal origins have presented different accounts. But these have been difficu...
