11 ms·

Genetic evidence suggests that, four millennia ago, Indians landed in Australia

104 points by benpbenp 14y ago

bencollier49 14y ago
It seems a little bit generous to allow 30 years per generation. The current average maternal age at childbirth in Western Europe is apparently around 29.5 years old. Wouldn't we expect that to be earlier in aboriginal cultures?
- sageikosa 14y ago
  Only if you assume a generation is keyed on the "first" birth; it is matrilineal; that culturally child-birthing begins as soon as puberty kicks in (rather than being forestalled by social taboos or customs); and that puberty kicks in at roughly the same age then as now, even in an area of scarce resources. I might think, off the bat, that 30 years is too high as well, but I also might assume they picked that number for a reason. Certainly, I'd like to know what it is as well, as that number is one of two key variables that creates the time-span value used for dating.
  - dmm 14y ago
    > that puberty kicks in at roughly the same age then as now, The age of sexual maturity in women has been decreasing for a while. It seems to be related to a number of things including body mass. So it was probably later for these people. I don't know anything about 30yr generations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menarche#Changes_in_time_of_average_age http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menarche#Changes_in_time_of_ave...
    - cabalamat 14y ago
      > The age of sexual maturity in women has been decreasing for a while. That's irrelevant; we're measuring generations of y-chromosomes which are passed by the father; the age of the mother has nothing to do with it.
      - sageikosa 14y ago
        Maybe not directly, but if in general women are paired with men older than themselves, then the age for men might skew upwards also.
  - cabalamat 14y ago
    > ...it is matrilineal... Bear in mind they are counting mutations on the y-chromosome, which is based from father to son. Over a wide range of cultures men on average mate with women who are younder than them, so the time between generations by patrilineal descent will be greater than the time by matrilineal descent.
    - bencollier49 14y ago
      Ahhh, that makes a lot more sense. Thanks.
- mvermaat 14y ago
  For the 30 y assumption they cite: Fenner JN (2005) Cross-cultural estimation of the human generation interval for use in genetics-based population divergence studies. Am J Phys Anthropol 128(2):415–423.
lrhot9 14y ago
A scenario: http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/a-three-hour-tour/ http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/a-three-hour-tour/
noopx 14y ago
The article has various flaws in it. That includes their imaginary dating of the "Indian civilization" as well as the assumption behind the SNP mutations based age and origin correlation. The nomenclature used on the map is also wrong. There are more than a dozen mistakes in it. There is no name of the author on the article either. I wonder if this is propaganda, pure carelessness or something else. Did the Zurich guys even approve publishing such non-sense?
- arethuza 14y ago
  'imaginary dating of the "Indian civilization"' The 23rd centry BC seems to be right in the middle of the peak of the Indus Valley Civilisation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization
- Jamiecon 14y ago
  Economist articles have no byline as editorial policy. Can't comment on the rest of your points.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  Max Planck Gesellschaft publication on this: http://www.mpg.de/6818105/Holocene-gene-flow_India-Australia http://www.mpg.de/6818105/Holocene-gene-flow_India-Australia > There are more than a dozen mistakes in it. Could you please point those out?
- lrhot9 14y ago
  Is this a trailer for a highbrow dismissal?
- carbocation 14y ago
  You allude to many things but don't state counterpoints. Would you please elaborate?
- cschmidt 14y ago
  That's an interestingly emotional, defensive response. Most HN readers would simply have found it an cool scientific article. I don't think the Economist science section really has a "propaganda" axe to grind. (And as others have said, they never sign articles.) What's the source of your reaction?
mvermaat 14y ago
Link to the original publication: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/01/09/1211927110 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/01/09/1211927110 (I'm sorry that it is behind a paywall.) Irina Pugach, Frederick Delfin, Ellen Gunnarsdóttir, Manfred Kayser, and Mark Stoneking. Genome-wide data substantiate Holocene gene flow from India to Australia. PNAS 2013; published ahead of print January 14, 2013, doi:10.1073/pnas.1211927110
hzay 14y ago
>> Sadly, the archaeological record has yet to reveal tandoori ovens or fossilised chapatis in Australia. Only marginally relevant to the article but it never ceases to pain me when I see another piece of evidence that the delicious and varied south indian cuisine is not well-known outside south india.
- Surio 14y ago
  I share your pain. Blame it on the surfeit of "Balti houses" in UK which have managed to crowbar faux north indian cuisine as the only Indian cuisine into brit pop culture!
  - meaty 14y ago
    Try west London, particularly Hounslow. Plenty of south Indian cuisine and at very reasonable prices.
- sonabinu 14y ago
  funny that tandoori roti and chapatis are from north India and evidence suggests migration from the south ... maybe the author needs a lesson in matching Indian food to region
- strlen 14y ago
  Yeah, it's sad that the article mentions "Tandoori" and anything having to do with South India on the same page.
- mistercow 14y ago
  Well, you know, give it time. I'm just happy that we've progressed to the point that any Indian cuisine has become common in my part of the world.
chwolfe 14y ago
If you're interested in the work being done to understand Indus script, Rajesh Rao delivered a TED talk with plenty of machine learning goodness: http://www.ted.com/talks/rajesh_rao_computing_a_rosetta_stone_for_the_indus_script.html http://www.ted.com/talks/rajesh_rao_computing_a_rosetta_ston...
- kylebgorman 14y ago
  Rao's claims are nonsense, according to computational linguist Richard Sproat (Bell Labs, University of Illinois, OHSU, now at Google): http://www.cslu.ogi.edu/~sproatr/newindex/indus.html http://www.cslu.ogi.edu/~sproatr/newindex/indus.html
  - srean 14y ago
    ...and the counterargument has been debunked too. A lot of complaints were just ad hominem attack alleging Tamil supremacy, Tamil ethnocentrism. The first note of dicord that strikes you as an Indian is that bar one, all authors of that paper were from North India. If any Tamil bias is expected from that rergion it would be a bias against Tamil. I dont know why Rao's claim (well they arent quite claims either, not yet atleast, they are rather a call for further investigation) have been so spectacularly blown out of proportion and why people get so upset about it. Sproat at least does not say that Rao in any form claimed that his work "proves" anything one way or the other, rather that it was the "discussion" around the paper that claims a proof. I would have been happier if that distinction was made clearer. In anycase if you search HN you will find an interesting thread discussing this topic. Learned quite a bit from it. Here is the previous discussion http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4061748 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4061748 and some here as well http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4154755 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4154755 EDIT: @kylebgorman I dont consider myself qualified enough to agree or disagree, but have to say that I was taken aback by the push back it received, particulay the vociferous allegation of Tamil supremacy. EDIT @kylebgorman wait I didnt say that the paper or the criticism was ethnically biased, but that ethnic bias was a major criticism that was levied against Rao's paper. This comment on the thread will have some examples http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4062129 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4062129 rebuttals, counter rebuttals, , counter-counter... you get the idea.
gus_massa 14y ago
It's interesting the hypothesis that the dingoes came in the same migration. Is there any study of the genome of dogs/lingoes classified by geographical origin?
spinonethird 14y ago
In similar news, researches recently found that Madagascar was colonized by Indonesian people, not people coming from mainland Africa. Moreover, there were only about 30 female settlers (no information about male settlers as the study was done on mitochondria DNA, which is only passed from mother to child, but not from father to child). http://www.economist.com/node/21550759 http://www.economist.com/node/21550759 http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/279/1739/2761.short http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/279/1739/2761...
- tokenadult 14y ago
  In similar news, researches recently found that Madagascar was colonized by Indonesian people, not people coming from mainland Africa. The genetics study is a confirmation of a fact that was known for a long, long time on linguistic grounds. (All of the major languages spoken on Madagascar are Austronesian languages, cognate with the languages from farther east like those of Indonesia and Polynesia.) The travel of some food crops to Madagascar with the early seafaring settlers also suggested this.
ForFreedom 14y ago
Can India claim rights to Australia?
grecy 14y ago
Near my hometown in Australia human remains have been found that are older than any existing model of human migration says they aught to be. Nobody has come up with a good explanation of how human could have been in Australia so long ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Mungo_remains http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Mungo_remains
strlen 14y ago
This is very interesting, I always thought of Australian natives as having been a part of an out-migration of similar populations (remnants of which still exist, e.g., Andamanese in India, small populations in Thailand, Malaysia, and Philippines, etc...) from South/South-East Asia -- with intermarriage between further migrations (Indo-European speakers, Austronesians, etc...) and these remnant populations leading to form the different ethnic groups along the route of migration. I wonder if another possible explanation for the Dravidic SNPs is due to intermarriage with Indonesian population -- themselves probably bearing some Dravidic DNA due to India's influence on Indonesia at one time -- that traveled to Northern Australia from the late middle ages until early 20th century for fishing and trade purposes.
i386 14y ago
If this is true, is there any evidence of cultural or technological contamination? Surely these seafarers brought a lot of new ideas and technology with them (such as agriculture).

104 points by benpbenp 14y ago

It seems a little bit generous to allow 30 years per generation. The current average maternal age at childbirth in Western Europe is apparently around 29.5 years old. Wouldn't we expect that to be earlier in aboriginal cultures?

sageikosa 14y ago
Only if you assume a generation is keyed on the "first" birth; it is matrilineal; that culturally child-birthing begins as soon as puberty kicks in (rather than being forestalled by social taboos or customs); and that puberty kicks in at roughly the same age then as now, even in an area of scarce resources. I might think, off the bat, that 30 years is too high as well, but I also might assume they picked that number for a reason. Certainly, I'd like to know what it is as well, as that number is one of two key variables that creates the time-span value used for dating.
- dmm 14y ago
  > that puberty kicks in at roughly the same age then as now, The age of sexual maturity in women has been decreasing for a while. It seems to be related to a number of things including body mass. So it was probably later for these people. I don't know anything about 30yr generations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menarche#Changes_in_time_of_average_age http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menarche#Changes_in_time_of_ave...
  - cabalamat 14y ago
    > The age of sexual maturity in women has been decreasing for a while. That's irrelevant; we're measuring generations of y-chromosomes which are passed by the father; the age of the mother has nothing to do with it.
    - sageikosa 14y ago
      Maybe not directly, but if in general women are paired with men older than themselves, then the age for men might skew upwards also.
- cabalamat 14y ago
  > ...it is matrilineal... Bear in mind they are counting mutations on the y-chromosome, which is based from father to son. Over a wide range of cultures men on average mate with women who are younder than them, so the time between generations by patrilineal descent will be greater than the time by matrilineal descent.
  - bencollier49 14y ago
    Ahhh, that makes a lot more sense. Thanks.
mvermaat 14y ago
For the 30 y assumption they cite: Fenner JN (2005) Cross-cultural estimation of the human generation interval for use in genetics-based population divergence studies. Am J Phys Anthropol 128(2):415–423.

lrhot9 14y ago

A scenario: http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/a-three-hour-tour/ http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/a-three-hour-tour/

noopx 14y ago

The article has various flaws in it. That includes their imaginary dating of the "Indian civilization" as well as the assumption behind the SNP mutations based age and origin correlation. The nomenclature used on the map is also wrong. There are more than a dozen mistakes in it. There is no name of the author on the article either. I wonder if this is propaganda, pure carelessness or something else. Did the Zurich guys even approve publishing such non-sense?

arethuza 14y ago
'imaginary dating of the "Indian civilization"' The 23rd centry BC seems to be right in the middle of the peak of the Indus Valley Civilisation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization
Jamiecon 14y ago
Economist articles have no byline as editorial policy. Can't comment on the rest of your points.
jacquesm 14y ago
Max Planck Gesellschaft publication on this: http://www.mpg.de/6818105/Holocene-gene-flow_India-Australia http://www.mpg.de/6818105/Holocene-gene-flow_India-Australia > There are more than a dozen mistakes in it. Could you please point those out?
lrhot9 14y ago
Is this a trailer for a highbrow dismissal?
carbocation 14y ago
You allude to many things but don't state counterpoints. Would you please elaborate?
cschmidt 14y ago
That's an interestingly emotional, defensive response. Most HN readers would simply have found it an cool scientific article. I don't think the Economist science section really has a "propaganda" axe to grind. (And as others have said, they never sign articles.) What's the source of your reaction?

mvermaat 14y ago

Link to the original publication: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/01/09/1211927110 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/01/09/1211927110 (I'm sorry that it is behind a paywall.) Irina Pugach, Frederick Delfin, Ellen Gunnarsdóttir, Manfred Kayser, and Mark Stoneking. Genome-wide data substantiate Holocene gene flow from India to Australia. PNAS 2013; published ahead of print January 14, 2013, doi:10.1073/pnas.1211927110

hzay 14y ago

>> Sadly, the archaeological record has yet to reveal tandoori ovens or fossilised chapatis in Australia. Only marginally relevant to the article but it never ceases to pain me when I see another piece of evidence that the delicious and varied south indian cuisine is not well-known outside south india.

Surio 14y ago
I share your pain. Blame it on the surfeit of "Balti houses" in UK which have managed to crowbar faux north indian cuisine as the only Indian cuisine into brit pop culture!
- meaty 14y ago
  Try west London, particularly Hounslow. Plenty of south Indian cuisine and at very reasonable prices.
sonabinu 14y ago
funny that tandoori roti and chapatis are from north India and evidence suggests migration from the south ... maybe the author needs a lesson in matching Indian food to region
strlen 14y ago
Yeah, it's sad that the article mentions "Tandoori" and anything having to do with South India on the same page.
mistercow 14y ago
Well, you know, give it time. I'm just happy that we've progressed to the point that any Indian cuisine has become common in my part of the world.

chwolfe 14y ago

If you're interested in the work being done to understand Indus script, Rajesh Rao delivered a TED talk with plenty of machine learning goodness: http://www.ted.com/talks/rajesh_rao_computing_a_rosetta_stone_for_the_indus_script.html http://www.ted.com/talks/rajesh_rao_computing_a_rosetta_ston...

kylebgorman 14y ago
Rao's claims are nonsense, according to computational linguist Richard Sproat (Bell Labs, University of Illinois, OHSU, now at Google): http://www.cslu.ogi.edu/~sproatr/newindex/indus.html http://www.cslu.ogi.edu/~sproatr/newindex/indus.html
- srean 14y ago
  ...and the counterargument has been debunked too. A lot of complaints were just ad hominem attack alleging Tamil supremacy, Tamil ethnocentrism. The first note of dicord that strikes you as an Indian is that bar one, all authors of that paper were from North India. If any Tamil bias is expected from that rergion it would be a bias against Tamil. I dont know why Rao's claim (well they arent quite claims either, not yet atleast, they are rather a call for further investigation) have been so spectacularly blown out of proportion and why people get so upset about it. Sproat at least does not say that Rao in any form claimed that his work "proves" anything one way or the other, rather that it was the "discussion" around the paper that claims a proof. I would have been happier if that distinction was made clearer. In anycase if you search HN you will find an interesting thread discussing this topic. Learned quite a bit from it. Here is the previous discussion http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4061748 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4061748 and some here as well http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4154755 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4154755 EDIT: @kylebgorman I dont consider myself qualified enough to agree or disagree, but have to say that I was taken aback by the push back it received, particulay the vociferous allegation of Tamil supremacy. EDIT @kylebgorman wait I didnt say that the paper or the criticism was ethnically biased, but that ethnic bias was a major criticism that was levied against Rao's paper. This comment on the thread will have some examples http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4062129 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4062129 rebuttals, counter rebuttals, , counter-counter... you get the idea.

gus_massa 14y ago

It's interesting the hypothesis that the dingoes came in the same migration. Is there any study of the genome of dogs/lingoes classified by geographical origin?

spinonethird 14y ago

In similar news, researches recently found that Madagascar was colonized by Indonesian people, not people coming from mainland Africa. Moreover, there were only about 30 female settlers (no information about male settlers as the study was done on mitochondria DNA, which is only passed from mother to child, but not from father to child). http://www.economist.com/node/21550759 http://www.economist.com/node/21550759 http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/279/1739/2761.short http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/279/1739/2761...

tokenadult 14y ago
In similar news, researches recently found that Madagascar was colonized by Indonesian people, not people coming from mainland Africa. The genetics study is a confirmation of a fact that was known for a long, long time on linguistic grounds. (All of the major languages spoken on Madagascar are Austronesian languages, cognate with the languages from farther east like those of Indonesia and Polynesia.) The travel of some food crops to Madagascar with the early seafaring settlers also suggested this.

ForFreedom 14y ago

Can India claim rights to Australia?

grecy 14y ago

Near my hometown in Australia human remains have been found that are older than any existing model of human migration says they aught to be. Nobody has come up with a good explanation of how human could have been in Australia so long ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Mungo_remains http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Mungo_remains

strlen 14y ago

This is very interesting, I always thought of Australian natives as having been a part of an out-migration of similar populations (remnants of which still exist, e.g., Andamanese in India, small populations in Thailand, Malaysia, and Philippines, etc...) from South/South-East Asia -- with intermarriage between further migrations (Indo-European speakers, Austronesians, etc...) and these remnant populations leading to form the different ethnic groups along the route of migration. I wonder if another possible explanation for the Dravidic SNPs is due to intermarriage with Indonesian population -- themselves probably bearing some Dravidic DNA due to India's influence on Indonesia at one time -- that traveled to Northern Australia from the late middle ages until early 20th century for fishing and trade purposes.

i386 14y ago

If this is true, is there any evidence of cultural or technological contamination? Surely these seafarers brought a lot of new ideas and technology with them (such as agriculture).