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Aboriginal Australian genomes reveal Indian ancestry (2013)
- runsWphotons 4y agoLooks like this is quite old...they will probably find even more introgression. Something like 80% of Australian languages are from Indian-derived language families and developed from around the time of the Dingo introduction (only 4000 years ago), so there basically had to be a substantial amount of gene flow as well. Only a minority of the aboriginal languages come from an earlier substrate. It would be surprising if there doesn't also emerge evidence of substantial conflicts around this time.
- elliotshep 4y ago> Something like 80% of Australian languages are from Indian-derived language families Have you got a source for that?
- stolen_biscuit 4y ago> 80% of Australian languages are from Indian-derived language families and developed from around the time of the Dingo introduction (only 4000 years ago) Source? Australia has been continuously populated by Aboriginal people for 60,000+ years, with over 260 languages I find that claim incredibly hard to believe.
- ace2358 4y agoEspecially only 4,000 years ago. I’m under the impression that the culture is much much older than that. Why would it change so quickly? Especially for a people’s that are quite traditional. At least as I understand it. I also understand that the native languages are mostly spoken and not written, are these Indian languages written?
- pigscantfly 4y agoLinguistic displacement can occur without genetic displacement. This has happened many times in history -- usually when a society's elite are displaced by a linguistically distinct foreign elite and their language is gradually adopted down the ranks of society as people seek advancement. Many branches of Proto-Indo-European (eg. Anatolian) are thought to have spread in this manner ie. with elite but not whole-population displacement. I wasn't aware of this Australian language family example, but it may not be as surprising as it sounds at first.
- WalterBright 4y agoThat happened in England after the Battle of Hastings. Upper crust English is still dominated by french words.
- jjtheblunt 4y agoMy Germanic Linguistics grad school prof told us once, to your point, if you count etymologies of words in spoken English and in the English dictionary, you'd get roughly the following: spoken English uses roughly 80% Germanic vocabulary, but the English dictionary is roughly 80% Latin and Greek words (anglicized).
- WalterBright 4y agoI've heard it put more crassly as "barbarian grammar with french nouns"
- jjtheblunt 4y agoThat's great.
- codebje 4y agoThe only thing that got hacked to pieces more than the English peasantry during the middle ages was the English language.
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- verytrivial 4y agoThere is compelling but rare evidence of habitation back as far at 60,000 years. But there is zero reason to assume the continent was sealed to migration at any point. In fact it was disconnected and reconnected by land bridges more than once over that period. Culture is a process not an artifact. Regarding the speed of change, tally the vocab contribution of Norman French, Anglo Saxon, Roman and Brittonic languages to modern English -- the 'place' has almost forgotten the contributions made beyond about 1,600 years ago even if there are living residents that are genetically linked to inhabitants from thousands of years before.
- AlotOfReading 4y agoAustralasia has not been joined to the rest of the world by land bridges for tens of millions of years. That's why so much of the fauna is strange and unusual. Humans are one of the few mammalian species that have managed to cross the deep water barriers on our own.
- runsWphotons 4y agoNew Guinea was until end of ice age though I believe.
- verytrivial 4y agoTrue, you've never been able to just walk it like you could to Tasmania. I mean millions of years ago, Australia was further south -- it's been inching north[1]. Sea levels around the last glacial maximum[2] made the distances much more 'canue-able'. I would consider that at least 'more connected', but you are correct. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/03/mind-the-gap-australias-latitude-and-longitude-to-shift-2m-next-year https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/03/mind-the-gap... [2] https://phys.org/news/2018-04-island-hopping-route-people-australia.html https://phys.org/news/2018-04-island-hopping-route-people-au...
- runsWphotons 4y agoVarious aboriginal cultures (there isnt just one) have elements which are much older but over 300 of the ~400 languages are from one family (pama nyungyan). This family's common ancestor is traced to a region in North Australia around 5000 years ago. These languages suddenly exploded and spread across the continent at around the same time other technologies and techniques seem to change. This was around the time of the Dingo introduction and this considerable Indian introgression discussed in paper--the dingo was probably brought by these people. I may have misremembered that these languages have some relation to south indian ones, it seems this is disputed, but this is all happening around the same time. There is a lot that isn't known about Aboriginal peoples and the genetic studies once they are performed (if allowed) are likely going to show a more complex picture than the usual narrative. To the person who called me a tamil nationalist or something i can only laugh.
- causality0 4y agohttps://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/mar/14/most-australian-indigenous-languages-came-from-just-one-place-research-claims#:~:text=Most%20Indigenous%20languages%20in%20Australia,a%20new%20study%20has%20claimed https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/mar/14/most-....
- undersuit 4y agoYour article doesn't provide any evidence that Pama–Nyungan languages are from India. You'd think the Wikipedia article on Dravidian wouldn't say "The Dravidian family has defied all of the attempts to show a connection with other languages" if there was some evidence of the language families relation.
- bawolff 4y agoI have no idea if its true or not, but it doesn't sound totally impossible. Look at how the language make up has changed over the last 300 years in north america.
- codebje 4y agoIt only took 200 years for 200 of those 260 languages to be lost or brought to the edge of extinction. It's at least plausible and to me quite believable that the arrival of a group with a technological advantage 4,000 years ago could have had a substantial impact on the existing languages. The same set of languages definitely will not have survived for 60,000 years. Tribes come and go, merge and split. Outside influences bring in new words and grammatical structures. Oral tradition is a low fidelity carrier of language and culture, and easily accommodates change in language.
- permo-w 4y agosure it’s plausible, but is there any linguistic evidence of it being the case? otherwise there’s very little point in discussing it
- meepmorp 4y ago> Something like 80% of Australian languages are from Indian-derived language families Nonsense.
- causality0 4y agoHe is correct. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-018-0489-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-018-0489-3
- biorach 4y agoThe abstract of that article does nothing to support the claim that any Australian languages are originally from India.
- a_bonobo 4y agoYou're right! The only sentence about India: >An expansion [ of the family from the Gulf of Carpentaria] at this time is consistent with evidence from early genetic studies for gene flow into Australia from India ~4–5 ka21, but more recent work has called these findings into question It doesn't talk about Indian languages specifically. The Gulf of Carpentaria is on the Australian side of the gulf between Australia and Indonesia.
- runsWphotons 4y agoit seems the theory is more disputed than i remember, so lets say around 5000 years ago there was perhaps significant indian introgression into aborginal genetics (as per article above), the introduction of new tools, the arrival of the dingo (speculated by some to be introduced by these indian peoples) and the spread of this language family from a small progenitor language to the dominant language on the continent. So something significant was happening at that time. There are other hints there couldve been previous waves of new peoples from art and so on (these are disputed, from memory). The story of the aboriginals will wind up being more complex and interesting than "showed up 60,000 years ago and were unchanged until the first fleet".
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- undersuit 4y ago80% of Australian languages are classified as Pama–Nyungan languages. Are you saying they are based off of an Indo-European language? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pama%E2%80%93Nyungan_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pama%E2%80%93Nyungan_languages
- rohan_ 4y agodravidian languages are not indo-european
- undersuit 4y agoThe entire country of India doesn't speak only Dravidian languages. You can understand where the confusion comes from right? The person I was replying too didn't say Dravidian, it says Indian languages.
- rohan_ 4y agoSorry for my tone, I didn’t mean to come off as rude. It’s understandable why one would be confused here.
- actionfromafar 4y agoDravidian is not indo-european AFAIK.
- undersuit 4y agoBut no one said Dravidian. Thank you for clearing that up. Same question: Are you saying they are based off of a Dravidian language?
- runsWphotons 4y agoI was saying this based on what Ive read previously. It seems the theory is more disputed than I remember but it is consistent with this genetic introgression and other things happening at the time. Whatever the case a lot of things changed circa 5000 years ago.
- EdwardDiego 4y ago> Something like 80% of Australian languages are from Indian-derived language families and developed from around the time of the Dingo introduction (only 4000 years ago) I'm assuming you're referring to the Pama-Nyungan family, which predates the dingo by nearly 2000 years? I can't find any documentation of the Indian language families connection, do you have any? This reminds me of the Tamil nationalists who, like some Serbs, like to claim that their language is the ur-language. https://imgur.io/YxC5Rz1 https://imgur.io/YxC5Rz1
- runsWphotons 4y agoboth dingo and the spread of this family are around 5000 years give or take and roughly contemporaneous with this introgression in OP. None of the dates are known with that much precision afaik. It seems the theory that the languages are indian is disputed, so lets just say a lot of new stuff was happening around that time. There is disputed circumstantial evidence for other waves of migration. For example the Bradshaw paintings have long been thought to be the work of newer peoples (maybe from papua). Some people dispute this and say it discounts the abilities of the natives there, and that may be true, there could be just one group always there who did them and then stopped. But the art bears little resemblance to earlier art there or in other regions of australia, which is often little more than handprints or slightly cartoonish looking things. The bradshaws are quite different and it at least makes sense to ask if there wasnt some new wave of peoples with unique tools and art style. Or otherwise some kind of "golden era" where there was more population and other interesting things happened. Something to look for in future. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwion_Gwion_rock_paintings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwion_Gwion_rock_paintings)
- biorach 4y agoyou really need to cite some sources for all these claims you're making spread over many different comments
- runsWphotons 4y agoMost of the claims Im making come straight from the nature article at the top. First paragraph: "Northern Aboriginal Australians can trace as much as 11% of their genomes to migrants who reached the island around 4,000 years ago from India, a new study suggests. Along with their genes, the migrants <may?> also have brought more advanced tool-making techniques and the ancestors of the dingo." The pama-nyungan proto-language has been estimated to be around 5,000 years old, roughly. There are sources for this claim in the wikipedia article, and also for the claim that 306/~400 aborginal languages are in this family. The "out of india" theory is more disputed than I thought (corrected this elsewhere), but is a proposed theory. There are several theories here, but the paper argues for basically what Ive said elsewhere: https://langev.com/pdf/442ac40068c1d8a67a561d0d7f0fcd95c429c265.pdf https://langev.com/pdf/442ac40068c1d8a67a561d0d7f0fcd95c429c... I talked about the bradshaw paintings somewhere else, the wikipedia article on these has good sources i also have some papers somewhere. Notnsure what else you want to get started.
- troad 4y ago> Something like 80% of Australian languages are from Indian-derived language families This is wrong. No known relationships exist between any Australian Aboriginal language and any language from India. For much of far northern Australia, no known relationships exist between even neighbouring languages! (The non Pama-Nyungan languages, to be specific.)
- programmer_dude 4y agoThe article has no information beyond "Indian". Which part of India? Which clan?
- yrdmb 4y agoApparently, dravidian-speaking groups. "Thus, the f4 statistics indicate a signal of gene flow from India to Australia and, furthermore, that the source population is more closely related to present-day Dravidian-speaking Indian groups than to Onge." https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1211927110 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1211927110
- no_butterscotch 4y agoI wonder if India will try to grant them "diaspora" status like they did with the Romani in Europe?
- matrix12 4y agoDravidians. They named Australia "Kumari Kandam"
- yesenadam 4y ago(2013)
- _dain_ 4y agoThis has been known for at least a decade. https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/a-three-hour-tour/ https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/a-three-hour-tour/ >Here’s a scenario. A ship from some Indian civilization about 4000 years ago [maybe Indus] loses its way and ends up crashing on the shore of Arnhem Land. Like most ships, its crew is all male. They survive the landing, and end up warring with a local tribe. Eventually, they kill off most of the men and annex the sobbing women. The new tribe has 5x higher carrying capacity, essentially due to better technology, and they’re militarily superior as well – better weapons and tactics. They expand and expand, picking up more and more old Australian genes as they do so. Not as an empire – they’re too simple for that – but the tribes that descend from them keep winning. They speak the ancestor of the Macro-Pama-Nyungan languages, which originates as a mix between their old-Dravidian language (from the men) and some local Australian tongue (from the women). >One funny thing about this scenario: the sailors lose almost all of their civilization, and probably thought they were descending into savagery. On the other hand, the locals probably thought of the castaways as incredibly advanced, magicians or gods. They were both right.
- ace2358 4y agoThis is a completely baseless theory with no citations or evidence at all other than the “11% ancestry” (what does that mean?). “Let assume that this new analysis is correct.” Yeah okay mate. I wouldn’t say that “this is a known fact”
- _dain_ 4y agoit's based on DNA studies and ancestry percentage has a perfectly well-defined meaning
- ace2358 4y agoI understand how the theory of dna ancestry works, but it’s not so clear cut. We still don’t have a good understanding of how these things work over the time scales of Australia (60,000 years of inhabitation). Saying that one boat accidentally crashed and took over Australia culturally is technically possible but completely without evidence, “11%” or not.
- throwaway12245 4y agoThis is "Nature News". The source article is https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1211927110 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1211927110
- viewtransform 4y agoMore than a decade ago I submitted my DNA to the National Genographic Project [1] which was an attempt to trace ancient human migration using Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA from a sampling of people around the world. My paternal Y-chromosome line showed an ancient mutation (>50K year ago) carried by humans who had likely spread through a coastal migration from Africa around coasts of the Arabian Sea down to South India and eventually thousands of years later to Australia. My ancestors are from the west coast of India. About 5% of Indians carry this mutation (shared with indigenous australians) according to the data that was available at that time. As we gather more data our understanding of human migration inevitably clashes with identity politics/nationalism and previous simplistic pre-scientific classifications based on skin color and facial features: Aryan invasion, Dravidian etc. Human migration appears to be much richer. There have been many migrations of humans groups both in and out of the Indian subcontinent going on for more than 50K years. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genographic_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genographic_Project
- runsWphotons 4y agoThat there is some Indian introgression into Aborigibal genomes is completely not surprising based on phenotypic characteristics of their faces as well as other aspects of their cultures like language. It was remarked upon by "previous simplistic pre-scientific" British settlers, who it turns out were quite right. Many other older theories have turned out to get support from the genetic evidence.
- viewtransform 4y agoIndia was just a waypoint on the journey of human genes from Africa to Australia.
- runsWphotons 4y agoThe study above argues convincingly for later contact though. There were probably several waves, theres other (disputed) circumstantial evidence for this. When we sequence more (if allowed) we will find richer picture as the OP alludes to.
- Jedd 4y agoIt's an emotionally charged subject, which is unfortunate as it's objectively fascinating from a purely historical perspective. The simplified and (generally) commonly accepted narrative is that a cohesive group arrived here 45-60,000YA, lived peacefully and in harmony with the land right up until Europeans arrived. There's some debate about the megafauna extinctions, but no conclusive evidence either way. (I did appreciate Dr Yuval Noah Harari's summary of the phenomenon in his book Sapiens.) If it turns out that the original population was partly / mostly replaced (linguistically, culturally, genetically) relatively recently, that potentially complicates a lot of the cultural positioning. As I say, it's a shame, as the migration (including ethno & linguistic) paths over the past ~100k years are just amazing.
- ajross 4y ago> emotionally charged subject, which is unfortunate [...] The simplified and (generally) commonly accepted narrative [...] that potentially complicates a lot of the cultural positioning. [...] it's a shame Uh... what's a shame? None of that stuff happened. You've picked a fight with a strawman here. No one is engaging like that with the linked article, or here in the HN thread, except you.
- Zurrrrr 4y agoHe's talking about the fact that Aboriginals, not unlike Native Americans, reject any attempt to explain their origin via science as they stick to the story of their origin that comes from their religion, and see the science based origin as disrespectful.
- rramadass 4y agoI first came across this in the absolutely fascinating documentary The Journey of Man A Genetic Odyssey : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_xTG6VXlIQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_xTG6VXlIQ It is a "must watch" for everybody who really wants to understand Genetics/Migration. Also see : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Journey_of_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Journey_of_Man
- viewtransform 4y agoI recommend too. This is the documentary created by Spencer Wells who led the National Genographic project. This was created using data about 15 years ago - I've been looking forward to an update that accounts for recent data.
- rramadass 4y agoYes, this documentary (and the book) are far more approachable and understandable for the "common man".
- ChickenNugger 4y agoThe only interesting thing I know about Aborigines is they're the only known people who didn't invent the bow and arrow. As a hobbyist archer this is fascinating to me. They apparently didn't need it, as they're still around.
- coderenegade 4y agoIt's the wood. You can rank woods by the amount of strain energy per unit of mass that they can take before breaking. The higher this figure, the better the bow, because it'll store more energy for a lower mass in the limbs before it breaks, and the differences can be fairly significant. The best bow woods are all at the top of this list, along with a few that should be good in theory but aren't used likely for other reasons (i.e. the plant just doesn't produce the kind of limbs you need to make a bow). The best Australian woods are fairly ordinary by comparison. On average they're hopeless. This isn't to say you can't do it (people do with spotted gum, which isn't a good bow wood), just that there are better ways of going about it if you want to hunt. I'd be surprised if northern Australians at least didn't know about the bow, because there was frequent contact with Indonesia and people from PNG, all of whom practiced archery. There are oral traditions in places like Arnhem land testifying to this contact going back generations.
- a_bonobo 4y agoMost Australian wood is also ultra-hard, you can't have a bendy bow from there. People used to build streets from blocks of Jarrah wood [1]. A much more popular Australian weapon was the combination of spear thrower and spear; that'll take your head off clean. https://fremantlestuff.info/streets/blocks.html#:~:text=Australian%20Jarrah%20proved%20to%20be,resistant%20to%20absorbing%20horse%20urine https://fremantlestuff.info/streets/blocks.html#:~:text=Aust....
- ChickenNugger 4y agoI have a Jarrah cane! I'm completely confident it would stop a steel sword. Probably mess up the edge in the process. It's heavy too.
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- 10g1k 4y agoMerely looking at aborigines will reveal to anyone with adequate IQ that they are similar to Indians. Listening to them will reveal similarities to Indian languages. The genetic evidence of multiple waves of migration from India, through south-east Asia, to Australia has been available for many years. These things have all be ignored or denied by the government, media, and lobby groups for years. Because facts do not support the narrative.
- victor106 4y agoFor this interested in this topic, highly recommend the book: Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past
- poulpy123 4y agoI would like to sample my genome to have an idea of my ancestry history but I'm not comfortable with giving it away to companies
- imbnwa 4y agoMaybe this is why I thought Maddeline Madden from Wheel of Time was South Indian when I saw her, as I hadn't paid attention to cast names, only to discover she's Australian Aboriginal