Aboriginal Australians descended from Y-Adam in Africa more recently, so who is the First Nation before them?

 

Aboriginal Australians descended from Y-Adam in Africa more recently, so who is the 'First Nation'?

The human race today is fundamentally Homo sapiens in origin but there is also a legacy from some of the predecessors. This introduction is a summary of the origins from primates and early distribution.Australopithecus afarensis female face reconstruction

The Aboriginal Australian ancestors left Africa 66,000 years ago on their long migration through Saudi Arabia. They left India 41,000 years ago then spread through Oceania from Indonesia. Genotyping suggests an arrival in Australia around 20,000 to possibly 30,000 years ago but more data are required.

Archaeological studies suggest inhabitants lived in Australia 50,000 to 65,000 years ago. Artefacts have been tested but no trace has been found of their genomics in modern Aboriginal Australians.
In Shipton’s words in 2024: “a major dispersal overwhelming and obscuring the genetic signature of earlier events”.

To be more specific, the First Nation inhabitants that resided at Madjedbebe have been obliterated before or during the arrival of Aboriginal Australians on their migration from Africa without introgression.

The first humans on earth

The extinct ancient human Homo erectus is the first to have human-like body proportions, with shorter arms and longer legs relative to its torso. Adults grew to about 1.4 to 1.8 metres tall and weighed 41-65 kilograms. It was also the first known primate to migrate out of Africa, and possibly also the first to cook food. Home erectus male reconstruction

H. erectus appeared in Africa about two million years ago, evolving from either Australopithecus afarensis (found between 3.85 and 2.95 million years ago in Eastern Africa) or one of the more primitive forms of Homo, and then H. erectus went on to spread into many parts of Asia. Java in Indonesia was connected to the Southeast Asian mainland when sea levels dropped, allowing H. erectus to take up residence there where it survived on Java for a very long time, until at least 250,000 years ago. The Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) emerged at least 200,000 years ago. Some defining features of their skulls include the large middle part of the face,Neanderthal man reconstruction angled cheek bones, and a huge nose for humidifying and warming cold, dry air. Their bodies were shorter and stockier than present humans as an adaptation to living in cold environments. But their brains were just as large. Height was between 1.50 and 1.75m and weight was about 64 to 82kg.

They and modern humans (Homo sapiens) may have had little direct interaction for tens of thousands of years until during one very cold period when modern humans spread into Europe. A new analysis of DNA from ancient modern humans in Europe and Asia has determined, more precisely than ever, the period during which Neanderthals interbred with modern humans, starting about 50,500 years ago and lasting about 7,000 years — until Neanderthals began to disappear. Homo sapiens in Africa reconstruction

That interbreeding left Eurasians with many genes inherited from Neanderthal ancestors, which in total make up between 1% and 2% of H. sapiens genomes today. The new dates also imply that the initial migration of modern humans from Africa into Eurasia was basically over 43,500 years ago.

This revelation that followed from genotyping cast doubt on the previous hypothesis that the two species shared a common ancestor and that Neanderthal and modern human lineages remain separated.

Researchers hypothesise that the Denisovan group descended from a late-migrating lineage of H. erectus that travelled from Africa to Eurasia about 700,000 years ago.

About 370,000 years ago the Neanderthal branch migrated to Europe and western Asia, inhabiting the Atlantic regions of Europe eastward to the Altai Mountains, whereas the Denisovans moved eastward into East Asia and Southeast Asia, possibly as far as the Philippines and beyond the Wallace Line (the faunal boundary between Asia and Australia) to New Guinea. Several genetic studies note that Neanderthals and Denisovans mixed at the edges of their geographic ranges such as in Denisova Cave in Siberia. Denisovan female face reconstruction

The Denisovan disappeared sometime after about 30,000 years ago.

Denisovan genomic material occurs in relatively large amounts in samples taken from modern human populations from Oceania. Such findings implied that the Denisovans appeared throughout large parts of Eurasia and that they interbred with early modern humans. Many researchers suggest that Denisovan populations disappeared from the Asian mainland as H. sapiens moved in, leaving only small populations of Denisovans on remote islands in the western Pacific. Researchers note that they interbred with later-arriving H. sapiens, to the extent that the Denisovan component is only between 4 and 6% of present-day genotype of modern humans from Melanesia. The discovery of Denisovan DNA in modern human populations in New Guinea and other remote islands suggests that, given the geography of the Pleistocene, the Denisovan were capable of seafaring.

y SNP path to Aboriginal Australians

Founded in 2000, FamilyTreeDNA pioneered the field of genetic genealogy – the use of DNA testing to establish relationships between individuals and determine ancestry. Over 2 million people have tested with FamilyTreeDNA, resulting in the most comprehensive DNA matching database in the industry.

By testing Y-DNA, ancestry through the males (paternal line) can be traced because each male only has one Y sex chromosome. Genetic males can use Y-DNA to determine where their direct paternal ancestors came from, their locations in historic times, and how they migrated throughout the world. Gene by Gene Ltd provide the laboratory services.

Maternal lines are traced through mtDNA as females have two X sex chromosomes.

DNA was tested from 18 Aboriginal Australian men down to Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP). They all share the same ancestor S-P308 SNP so he is the most recent ancestor (tMRCA) that has been identified. The estimated date for S-P308 is 5550 BCE or about 7,500 years ago.

H. erectus was the first human to have human-like body proportions, but Denisovan have a path with the estimated date of 705,000 BCE to SNP S-P308 of Aboriginal Australian heritage.

337,000 years later, the Neanderthal divergence with the date 368,000 BCE is traced.

136,000 years later, Y-Adam, the Early Homo Sapiens male in north Africa has single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) designated A-PR2921 and a path is compiled to S-P308. The date of Y-Adam is estimated 232,000 BCE. On 27th January 2025 Y-Adam has 667,595 descendants that have been genotyped in the database. This has grown progressively from 241,257 on 21st July 2023.

Each mutation that has been identified in Y-Adam’s ancestors that survived as Aboriginal Australians is shown with the estimated date on this map:

Age etsimates of yDNA haplotgroups during Aboriginal Australian migration from Africa

Intellectual property belongs to the owners of the DNA so limited data is displayed in the public domain but according to this map, the H. sapiens migration that appears to constitute modern-day Aboriginal Australians left Africa 66,000 years ago.  A straight line has been drawn between each known mutation in this map so does not necessarily show the exact route taken. This is illustrated in the map below.

It took another 24,000 years via Saudi Arabia and Iran then Pakistan to move from India.

In Thailand a few options were presented to migrating H. sapiens. Ancestors of Aboriginal Australian ancestor/s moved south through Thailand to reach Indonesia.

With intermittent sea level fluctuations, parts of Indonesia were connected with continental Asia so Indonesia was the stepping place north-east, east and south.

Sahul is the name of the combined continent of Australia with New Guinea when they were joined by land. Migration was facilitated at these times.

Path of yDNA haplogroups that include Aboriginal Australians during migration to Oceania from Africa

Over the last 44,000 years, SP S-Z33355 has 121 known descendants in the genome database from accumulated movements out of Africa. In a chain after ten consecutive mutations, S-F15412 is the most recent and he had not moved from Indonesia, 5,200 years ago.

Other mutations from S-Z33355 are recorded in Oceania. The quickest, so soonest to be recorded, is FTF52, 39,000 years ago, in Guam. About 11,000 years ago two genotypes in Vanuatu and one in Micronesia. S-P308 is in Australia and S-Z41728 is his first mutation.

With intermittent sea level fluctuations, parts of Indonesia were connected with continental Asia. Sahul is the name of the combined continent of Australia with New Guinea. Migration was facilitated at these times.

Clarence River Aboriginal Australian man

Aboriginal Australians that are descended from Y-Adam:

  • ‘Willandra Lakes 4’ was a man who lived between 2200 - 1800 BCE during the Archaic Age and was found in the region now known as Willandra Lakes, New South Wales, Australia. He was associated with the Kulin cultural group. His direct maternal line belonged to mtDNA haplogroup S2*.
  • ‘Barham 1’ is from Barham in New South Wales from between 300 - 400 CE in the Archaic period. He is from the Kulin cultural group.
  • King Ng:tja, also known as Nacha, Naicha, or Barry Clarke, was a significant figure among the Ngadjon-Jii people of the Atherton Tablelands in Queensland, Australia. He lived from 1833 to 1903 and as per the traditions of his people his body was ceremonially mummified.
  • ‘Aboriginal 6388’ was located at Golden Ridge in Western Australia from the time between 1800 and 1923 CE.
  • A descendant from S-Z42413 was genotyped from Tallong in NSW.
  • A descendant from S-Z41337 was genotyped from Cairns in Queensland.
  • A descendant from S-B255 was genotyped from Mungo in NSW.

Common migration of ancestors of Aboriginal Australians with early ancestors of Anglo-Saxon Europeans

One migration moved south through Thailand on to Indonesia and is mentioned previously.

One headed directly north and a third migration headed northeast through China and Mongolia. After moving into Russia, the route headed west when conditions may have become too bracing. There were more options after Kazakhstan so different migrations went to Turkey, or Italy and another moved through Germany, France and then either to Spain or to the United Kingdom. After Kazakhstan, another migration moved through Poland and then to the countries of Scandinavia.

Path of ydNA haplogroups during migration to Europe from Africa via Kazakhstan

This is one of several routes that were taken by H. sapiens into Europe from the original Y-Adam in Africa. Ancestors of Aboriginal Australians had split off in Thailand. A table of SNPs and their dates in Before Current Era (BCE) of the common path and then when the migrations diverted to either Australia for the Aboriginal Australian ancestors, and then for the long migration to Europe via Kazakhstan.

SNP path from Y-Adam (A-PR2921) in Africa to Aboriginal Australia (S-P308) and to Britain (R-L51)

Homo sapiensis Eurasia reconstruction

Another migration from Y-Adam hugged closer to the Mediterranean after moving west in Iran unlike the previous migrations that have been mentioned. The migration through Turkey was almost 30,000 years ago and moved through Austria, Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, Norway and finally to northern United Kingdom.

Map showing path of yDNA haplogroups during the Homo sapiens migration to Europe from Africa via Turkey

Different migrations culminated in the inhabitation of humans throughout Europe. ‘Mix and match’ within the population culminated in diversity in general but also inbreeding in isolated regions produced unique features in some pockets.

Mutations that were favoured by selection pressure in the colder climate resulted in changes in the phenotype of H. sapiens that evolved in Europe when compared with other descendants of Y-Adam in a hotter climate.

There was introgression of H. sapiens with Neanderthals in Europe for 7,000 years after the migration of H. sapiens from Africa 43,500 years ago.

Eurasian H. sapiens that evolved was better adapted to survive through changing climatic conditions at that time than the Neanderthals that disappeared.

Disjunct between fossil and genetic evidence brings uncertainty about origins of First Nation >30,000 years ago.

The discovery of an ancient lock of hair that was 100 years old enabled the genome of an Aboriginal Australian male from the early 20th century from Western Australia to be reviewed by Rassmussen et al., 2011

A map below from Rasmussen's paper shows the proposed migrations from their findings at that time: Map taken from Ramsussen et al 2011 showing the early spread of humans oustide Africa to Australia as posted on stevebennett.com.au

The black line shows the spread to East Asia 38,000 to 25,000 years ago. Then from the analysis of the 100-year-old hair sample from Western Australia, the hypothesis is presented that ancestors of Aboriginal Australian spread in another migration into East Asia 75,000 to 65,000 years ago and then reached Australia 50,000 years ago.

In 2015 Clarkson wrote that Madjedbebe in Kakadu, Northern Territories was originally excavated by Johan Kamminga in 1973. In 1988, Rhys Jones, Richard ‘Bert’ Roberts, and Christopher Chippendale augered a single core at the site, the initial TL results from which suggested that artefacts were present in levels dating to 50 years ago or earlier. The dates subsequently published by Roberts et al. (1990a) were questioned by Hiscock (1990) and Bowdler (1990), and later by Allen and O’Connell (2003, 2014). Hiscock (1990) pointed to an increasing divergence between the 14C and TL ages with depth, suggesting that the latter could result in an over-estimation of the real age of the deposit.

Finally, Hiscock concluded that, irrespective of several potential problems, the error ranges on the TL ages were too large to make a precise determination of initial occupation.
Roberts et al. (1990b, 1990c, 1998) responded to these criticisms in detail. However, Clarkson wrote while these observations ruled out displacement of artefacts into the 45 year ago levels, they did little to distinguish between the 45 year ago assemblage and artefacts at 50 to 60 years ago.

Allen and O’Connell (2003) also questioned the age and stratigraphic integrity of Madjedbebe, and indeed all Sahul sites with ages greater than 45–46 ka. With respect to Madjedbebe, they pointed to an inverted radiocarbon date at the base of the occupation deposit published by Bird et al. (2002) as possible evidence of termite activity transporting organic particles through the sequence. The radiocarbon sequence, however, is robust to a depth of 1.78 m below the surface. The charcoal dated by Bird et al. (2002) from 2.54 m depth was retrieved from a floated sediment sample and was <125 μm in size. The latter suggests that we should regard this as a minimum age for 9 sediments at that depth. Furthermore, as its original location cannot be confidently identified, we cannot rule out the possibility that it was intrusive material that had fallen or blown in during excavation.

Clarkson then analysed the stone artefact assemblage recovered during the 1989 excavations, currently held in the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin.
Based on the TL age estimates and the artefact distribution, Roberts et al. (1990a) suggested first occupation at MJB began 55 ± 5 ka. Although the excavators were conservative in their interpretations—stressing the upper (i.e., 50 ka) limit of this age range and taking the 13 lower limit of the high density band of artefacts (2.4 m bs) as the actual level of initial occupation—our analysis of the stone artefact assemblage confirms that the lowest artefacts occur in Spit 49, 2.76–2.8 m bs and are bracketed by the original OSL age estimate of 55.5 ± 8.2 ka and the TL estimate of 65 ± 14 ka. Subsequent redating of several of the lower samples at MJB using single grain and single aliquot OSL methods reduced the error ranges for the lower dates substantially but did not alter the original results (Roberts et al., 1998).

A new calibration curve back to 50 ka became available (Reimer et al., 2013). These new calibrations show that conventional radiocarbon years substantially under-estimate the ages of the sediments and that the calendar ages and luminescence ages are strongly correlated.

Although there are no reliable 14C ages older than 20 ka, the lack of difference in rates between the two methods before this time suggests that the change in sedimentation rates was a real event, rather than an effect of changes in the age-depth relationship between 14C and luminescence methods. The depth-age curve also allows us to estimate the possible age of the lowest artefact from the 6 mm sieve as approximately 64 ka, and the base of the dense artefact layer as approximately 55 ka (though it must be acknowledged, that the error ranges on these lowest luminescence ages are large). At present we take the 55 ka age as a more reliable indication of first occupation at the site.

Shipton et al., 2024 reports in Nature that fossil records indicate H. sapiens presence reached Sumatra from Africa via Eurasia about 68 thousand years ago and Sahul between 57 to 29 ka.
Shipton cites the four page article reported by Clarkson two years later  that was printed in Nature in 2017 that shows humans had already reached Australia around 65,000 years ago so there isn’t any mention of what he considered to be reliable indications.

Shipton’s review continues: “The dispersal of our species out of Africa presents a disjunct between fossil and genetic evidence… One possibility is that there were multiple dispersals of our species into Sahul, with a major dispersal overwhelming and obscuring the genetic signature of earlier events.”

Archaeological evidence indicates early dispersals, and genetic evidence points to another dispersal 70-40 ka. Laili in Timor-Leste is on the southern dispersal route between Eurasia and Australasia and has the earliest record of human occupation in the eastern Wallacean archipelago. New evidence from the site shows sediment accumulated in the shelter without human occupation, in the window 59–54 ka. This was followed by an abrupt onset of intensive human habitation beginning ~44 ka. Shipton and colleagues suggest that the intensive early occupation at Laili represents a colonisation phase, which may have overwhelmed previous human dispersals.

Dreaming

Apart from the use of science to interpret fossil and genetic evidence, there is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander view of creation.

People have always been considered to have been in Australia since the land was created.

On mainland Australia, ‘Dreaming’ is a belief held by many Aboriginal Australians to account for their origins. In the Dreaming all-powerful beings roamed the landscape and laid the moral and physical groundwork for human society.

Prior to the Dreaming there was a ‘land before time’ when the earth was flat. Ancestral beings moulded the landscape through their actions and gave life to the first people and their culture.

Murri Aboriginal Australian family group

No one can say exactly how old the Dreaming is because from an indigenous perspective the Dreaming has existed from the beginning of time.

Conclusion

Despite such a large land mass across mainland Australia, the collection of artefacts and human remains that have been adequately evaluated is quite sparse so there is a disjunct remains between fossil and genetic reports.

Most progress is coming from the ongoing addition of global genotypes into the database that is being cross referenced with hypotheses that have been presented from a century of archaeological findings.

Shipton refers to an ancient colonisation phase, which may have overwhelmed previous human dispersals. There is the disappearance of a nation from the genetic pool that is alleged to have occupied regions of Australia. It is written that the Denisovan were subservient and made way for H. sapiens incursions in Asia. With nowhere else to go the First Nation that were present in Australia between 50,000 and possibly 65,000 years ago may have been eliminated by genocide because there was no introgression with the Aboriginal Australians that arrived after them as their H. sapiens genomes from Y-Adam are relatively untainted. The exception is the presence of between 4 and 6% of Denisovan genomes have remained in Melanesia where introgression had been more successful.

Australian ancestral 'Sacred sites' are protecting the national heritage so reliance may have to be made on a concerted effort to build up the database of Aboriginal Australians together with those from other nations that their ancestors share DNA with. The presence of mutations that remain indefinitely in the DNA in every descendant enables their movement across and within countries to be definitively determined when enough have been bioassayed.

References:

Allen, J., O'Connell, J.F., 2003. The long and the short of it: archaeological approaches to determining when humans first colonised Australia and New Guinea. Aust. Archaeol. 57, 5–19.

Bird, M.I., Turney, C.S.M., Fifield, L.K., Jones, R., Ayliffe, L.K., Palmer, A., Cresswell, R., Robertson, S., 2002. Radiocarbon analysis of the early archaeological site of Nauwalabila I, Arnhem Land, Australia: implications for sample suitability and stratigraphic integrity. Quatern. Sci. Rev. 21, 1061–1075.

Bowdler, S., 1990. 50,000 year-old site in Australia—is it really that old? Aust. Archaeol. 31, 93.

Britannica, 2024. Denivosan, hominin group. Britannica.com online. 26th December 2024.

Clarkson, Christopher; Smith, Mike A.; Marwick, Benjamin; Fullagar, Richard; Wallis, Lynley A.; Faulkner, Patrick; Manne, Tiina; Hayes, Elspeth; Roberts, Richard G.; Jacobs, Zenobia; Carah, Xavier; Lowe, Kelsey, M.; Matthews, Jacqueline; and Florin, S Anna, 2015. "The archaeology, chronology and stratigraphy of Madjedbebe (Malakunanja II): a site in northern Australia with early occupation". University of Wollongong, Research Online, Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A. 3027. https://ro.uow.edu.au/smhpapers/3027.

Clarkson, C., 2015. The archaeology, chronology and stratigraphy of Madjedbebe (Malakunanja II): A site in northern Australia with early occupation. Journal of Human Evolution, (83), June 2015: 46-64.

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Reimer, P.J., Bard, E., Bayliss, A., Beck, J.W., Blackwell, P.G., Bronk Ramsey, C., Grootes,  P.M., Guilderson, T.P., Haflidason, H., Hajdas, I., HattŽ, C., Heaton, T.J., Hoffmann, D.L., Hogg, A.G., Hughen, K.A., Kaiser, K.F., Kromer, B., Manning, S.W., Niu, M., Reimer, R.W., Richards, D.A., Scott, E.M., Southon, J.R., Staff, R.A., Turney, C.S.M., van der Plicht, J., 2013. IntCal13 and Marine13 Radiocarbon Age Calibration Curves 0–50,000 Years cal. BP. Radiocarbon 55(4)

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Roberts, R.G., Yoshida, H., Galbraith, R., Laslett, G., Jones, R., Smith, M.A., 1998. Single-aliquot and single-grain optical dating confirm thermoluminescence age estimates at  Malakunanja II rockshelter in northern Australia. Ancient TL 16, 19–24.

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UQ news, 2019. Modern humans and Homo erectus did not co-exist in Java, study shows.  University of Queensland. 19th December 2019.

 

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