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Page 3 of  Part 5: A magical trip to Australia

锟斤拷. A continent without apes

For those scholars interested in the origin of mankind, Australia is a place because it is the only continent with 锟斤拷no indigenous apes§. Even before Europeans landed in Australia in the 17^th century, there is no trace that monkeys, apes, or similar primates ever lived there. Only after the Europeans have landed that we found monkeys and apes appear in the zoos. Among all the Australian excavations, there are no skeletal bones from monkeys or apes. On the contrary, there are fossils of aborigines and ancients human beings. Nonetheless, it is impossible to say that they are the products of evolution.

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According to the theory of continental drift, Australia was separated from the mainland 1.3 hundred million years ago. Even though Australia does not have apes, but it has marsupial animals such kangaroos, wombats, thylacine, and marsupial tiger which constitute the major wildlife there.

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Moreover, only Australia has platypuses. Although a mammal, it can lay eggs and reproduce. Australia's ancient fossils are very unique such as the fossil of the double incisors beast Diprotodon. When it was alive, its height was 2 meters and weighed three tons. It must have the largest marsupial ever lived on earth. Another one is the marsupial lion fossil. It also is a very unique animal which lived only in Australia.

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On April 29, 1770, Endeavour with 3 sails of the British Navy reached Kurnell Peninsula at the south west coast of Australia. On August 21, 1770, Captain James Cook officially announced that the entire south west coast of Australia now belonged to the British Empire. He named it New South Wales. However, this pronouncement failed to be acknowledged to by the local people whose response to Captain Cook was by throwing javelin at him. From subsequent investigation, it is estimated that there were 318,000 to 1000,000 people living there and similar to the distribution of present day Australians. Most of they lived along the southwest coast region and the Murray River region.

The Australian aborigines were not backward when compared to ancient's peoples from other continents. They have all kinds of stone tools, javelin, and boats made from tree bark and the worlds only boomerang. About four to five thousand years ago, they also entered the Neolithic Age. They have ax with a wooden handle, harpoon with a fish hook, and javelin with a bag containing dozens of small flint blades made from cut stones. May be because they could not exchange technological information with other ethnic groups, the Australian aborigines nerved entered the Bronze Age. They also failed to produced the bows and arrows commonly used in other regions of the world.

From south to north of Australia, we can find may ancient petroglyphs. The smooth line patterns and vivid characters of human beings and animals all point to a high standard in painting at the time. Using the modern dating methods, archeologists confirmed the coloring used in the petroglyphs at the Arnhem Land Malakunanjo II rock shelter on the western part of Australia dated back to 50,000 years ago (Reference 1). Even though they did not have a written language, but they had orally transmitted myths and stories about their ancestors. There were strict social organization, marriage system and rules in many, many of their tribes. Each tribe had its own territory.  They did not lack food. Their bodies were healthy. Before the Europeans landed on Australia, they lived a happy life.

Where did they come from for over 200 years, this question had puzzled archeologists. There were scholars who compared the fossils from the Australian ancient people with the fossils of skull bones from China锟斤拷s Liuqiang man and found them to be very similar. However, merely resemblance by itself does not prove their relationship like many criminal cases. The most accurate confirmatory method must rely one DNA. Early this century, the earliest research goal of molecular anthropologists was the study of the Australian aborigines. Based on DNA decoding, it was easily confirmed that the Australian aborigines were the descendants of M168 and descendants of a branch of M130. The precise analytical method and crystal clear conclusion of DNA decoding far surpasses other older methods which depend on comparing skeletal bones or evolutionary techniques.

The follow up questions is this: when did they arrive in Australia? DNA decoding is a very accurate method to confirm the human lineage. However, it is not a very accurate method for determining the date. For dating one must rely on confirmation of the dates of bones and stones.

锟斤拷锟斤拷. Lake Mungo Man

Mid-2oth century, archeologists discovered three human fossils in Australia's state of New South wales near Lake Mungo. They were named Lake Mungo 1(LM1), Lake Mungo 2 ( LM2) and Lake Mungo 3 ( LM3). LM1 was discovered in 1968 belonging to a female and thus named Mrs. Lake Mungo. LM3 was discovered in 1974 belonging to a male and thus named Mr. Lake Mungo.

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As to the period of time they had lived, there is difference from different research reports. One of these report using thorium-uranium dating method (230^Th/234U) confirmed that LM3 lived around 62,000 plus/minus 6,000 years ago (Reference 2). Mrs Lake Mungo had lived closer to us today. Based on the carbon 14 dating method, she lived between 24,500 to 26,500 years ago.

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These skeletal bones show that they are ancient modern men. Like us, they have a high, dome forehead. Alan Thorne, a well known archeologist, indicated: The ancient skeletal remains discovered at Lake Mungo belong to a lean tall person. He called them gracile. There is great resemblance in the structure of the skull bones between this gracile man and China's Liujiang Man indicative a special blood relationship between them. The Lake Mungo man may come from south China by way of Indonesia to Australia. (Reference 3)

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Based on the aforementioned facts, we can deduce that the earliest immigrants to Australia was around 60,000 years ago originating from Asia mainland to Australia via Indonesia.

III.The project of crossing the ocean

If the earliest immigrants arrived in Australia 60,000 years ago, then how did they manage to cross this vast ocean?

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Figure 5-20 Australian Aborigines Y chromosome haplogroups and mitochondrial haplogroups

3. The stolen bride?

After the crossing, M347's family had no contact with immigrants from outside of Australia in the several thousands of years. They were a lonely ethnic group oversea. Therefore, their Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA constituted one family in Australia. Yet, a very special phenomenon is that in both the Australian aborigines and the New Guinea aborigines the Q2 haplogroup genetic marker was simultaneously found. What had happened? In the aforementioned report (Reference 5), it was pointed out that Q2 was born about 30,400 years ago. The birth place was New Guinea. There once was a land bridge between New Guinea and Australia which was damaged by gradually rising sea water about 8,000 years ago.

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Therefore, it is likely that during certain time 8,000 years ago Q2 floated towards Australia.

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What needs to be emphasized is the fact that Q2 was found in Australia in some individuals锟斤拷 but the Y chromosome M347 and mitochondrial M42 and S are not finding in New Guinea.

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What this means is that New Guinea women with the mitochondrial Q2 walked across the land bridge from New Guinea to Australia and yet there were no Australian men or women who went to New Guinea. Does this mean that these New Guinea women were stolen brides? We will leave our wise readers to judge.

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4. DNA decoding depicts the three dimensional graphics of history of mankind

The decoding of Australian aborigines DNA reveals a story which could not have been uncovered otherwise with any other archeological research method. This is why DNA decoding is so unique in anthropological research. From the Y chromosome genetic marker M347's location on the paternal genetic tree we can see that Australian aborigines were descendants of M130. From this we can depict the migratory route of their ancestors from Africa to Australia. We can find out the close relationship between people in Australia and those from Indonesia, India and Africa. We could establish the distribution map around the world by connect the M130 branches and the M130 from Asia and Americas simultaneously on this same map (Please see the front cover of this book). Likewise, we can also establishthe maternal genetic tree L3 haplogroup with M and N distribution.

Searching upward in time beginning with the Australian with the paternalM137 genetic marker we could find the persons with the M168 genetic marker who lived 90,000 years ago. Moving even further upward, we could trace it back to Y chromosome Adam (Please see Figure 2-5 mankind锟斤拷s paternal genetic tree). Likewise if we searching upward in time beginning with the Australian with the female genetic markers M42 and S, we could find M and N 70,000 years ago and then L3 until mitochondrial Eve. (Please see Figure 2-11 The Mitochondrial lineage tree in Page 2 of Part 2 ).

For all these we can see that DNA decoding can indeed depict an accurate, three-dimensional graphics of the origin of mankind and the history of migration.

Reference:

1. M. H. Monroe,Australia: The Land Where Time Began,2013.

2. Thorne A, et. al.,Australia's oldest human remains: age of the Lake Mungo 3 skeleton. J Hum Evol. 1999 Jun;36(6):591-612.

3. Colin Groves, Alan Gordon Thorne 1939锟紺2012, Paleo Anthropology 2013: 28−32.

4.The First Mariners Project: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~auranet/mariners/web/index.html

5. Georgi Hudjashova,et. al. ,Revealing the prehistoric settlement of Australia by Y chromosome and mtDNA analysis,PNAS , May 22 2007.