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A genomic history of Aboriginal Australia.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

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Authors

Malaspinas, Anna-Sapfo 
Westaway, Michael C 
Muller, Craig 
Sousa, Vitor C 
Lao, Oscar 

Abstract

The population history of Aboriginal Australians remains largely uncharacterized. Here we generate high-coverage genomes for 83 Aboriginal Australians (speakers of Pama-Nyungan languages) and 25 Papuans from the New Guinea Highlands. We find that Papuan and Aboriginal Australian ancestors diversified 25-40 thousand years ago (kya), suggesting pre-Holocene population structure in the ancient continent of Sahul (Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania). However, all of the studied Aboriginal Australians descend from a single founding population that differentiated ~10-32 kya. We infer a population expansion in northeast Australia during the Holocene epoch (past 10,000 years) associated with limited gene flow from this region to the rest of Australia, consistent with the spread of the Pama-Nyungan languages. We estimate that Aboriginal Australians and Papuans diverged from Eurasians 51-72 kya, following a single out-of-Africa dispersal, and subsequently admixed with archaic populations. Finally, we report evidence of selection in Aboriginal Australians potentially associated with living in the desert.

Description

Keywords

Africa, Australia, Datasets as Topic, Desert Climate, Gene Flow, Genetics, Population, Genome, Human, Genomics, History, Ancient, Human Migration, Humans, Language, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, New Guinea, Phylogeny, Population Dynamics, Racial Groups, Tasmania

Journal Title

Nature

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0028-0836
1476-4687

Volume Title

538

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Sponsorship
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/H005854/1)
European Research Council (647787)
European Research Council (295907)