Study says Australian Aborigines came from Africa

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2007

SYDNEY (AFP) — New DNA evidence shows that Australian Aborigines are descended from a wave of migrants who left Africa about 50,000 years ago, researchers at Cambridge University have found.

The researchers said the findings reinforced the "Out of Africa" evolutionary theory, which holds that all modern humans are descended from a single group of "homo sapiens" that left Africa some 2,000 generations ago.

Until now, the main stumbling block for the theory was the huge discrepancy between Aboriginal skeletal and tool remains and those of people elsewhere along the "coastal expressway" -- the route through Asia taken by the early settlers.

Some scholars said the differences showed Australian Aborigines may have interbred with Java man, or "homo erectus", or...