DNA confirms Aboriginal people have a long-lasting connection to country
By Dani Cooper
Updated about 8 hours ago
RELATED STORY: World-first genome study reveals rich history of Aboriginal Australians
Members of the Stolen Generations may finally find a way back to their country, thanks to new research that reveals differences in Aboriginal DNA can be linked to specific geographic areas.
Key points
- Study analysed DNA of people forcibly relocated to Queensland and South Australia
- After Aboriginal people migrated to and then around Australia about 50,000 years ago, some populations stayed in specific regions
- Author says findings explains Aboriginal people's metaphysical connection to country
- Findings could help members of Stolen Generations trace their families back to country
The discovery is based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA found in hair samples taken from Aboriginal people during expeditions run between 1928 and the 1970s.
The DNA analysis, published today in Nature, again confirms modern Aboriginal Australians are descended from one founding population that arrived about 50,000 years ago when the continent was still connected to New Guinea.
But lead researcher Professor Alan Cooper of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA said the study shows the first people then "rocketed" around the west and east coasts, meeting somewhere in southern Australia around 2,000 years later.
The analysis indicated some populations stayed in specific areas during that continental migration and have been continuously present in those same regions ever since — having connection to country for as long as 50,000 years.
"We can see a very pronounced and distinct pattern of genetic types around Australia that clearly says Aboriginal people haven't moved [from those areas]," Professor Cooper said.
"Australia turns out to be unlike anywhere else in the world in terms of having long genetic histories across the landscape."
Reconstructing heritage from hair
The researchers analysed mitochondrial DNA — which allows maternal ancestry to be traced — from 111 hair samples that were originally collected, with permission, from Aboriginal families who had been forcibly relocated to the communities of Cherbourg in Queensland and Koonibba and Point Pearce in South Australia.
The South Australian Museum's collection of more than 5,000 hair samples, complete with cultural, linguistic, genealogical and geographical data, came from the expeditions run by the Board of Anthropological Research from the University of Adelaide between 1928 and the 1970s.
Co-author Lesley Williams, an Indigenous woman from Cherbourg Queensland, was a key adviser on the project and is also the granddaughter of one of the hair sample donors.
She said the picture of settlement provided by the study was an "absolutely important finding".
"A lot of non-Indigenous people said we weren't here. This establishes the truth of what we've been saying all along."
Mapping Aboriginal genetic history
Ms Williams said it was important Aboriginal people played a major role in developing the right cultural and ethical framework for the study.
DNA analysis was only undertaken with consent of the donors or their descendants and results were discussed face to face with the families before publication.
"For us to go to talk to community, it was so sensitive, so we had to do it in a very respectful way," Ms Williams told AM.
"Aboriginal people were able to be involved and, not only engaged, but they had the final say by giving their consent."
Ms Williams said the technology would help those members of the Stolen Generations whose records had been lost or destroyed to trace their families and the cultural lands they were from.
Building a picture of connection to land
The study builds on, and uses data from, a Nature paper from last year that sequenced the genome of 83 Aboriginal Australians.
Among other revelations, the earlier paper showed Aboriginal people living in desert conditions may have developed unique biological adaptations to survive the arid conditions.
Professor Cooper said this new study made sense of this result.
"What we are seeing [in our study] is a very long-term presence in areas," he said.
"If you are 50,000 years in the desert, or tropics, or Tasmania then presumably you are going to undergo selective changes in a way that no other human population did in the world.
"This is where the importance of the metaphysical connection between Aboriginal people and their country has come from.
"They have been on that land for so damn long and been through major environmental upheavals … so their survival is inextricably linked to being in their country because it is only there that they know how to survive these climate extremes."
Reaffirming decades of research, but more work needed
Professor David Lambert, from Griffith University, a co-author on last year's study, said the current study "simply reaffirmed the decades of research using modern genomes".
But he did not believe using museum hair samples was the best approach for investigating genomic diversity among Aboriginal people before European settlement.
He said this was because the hair samples were only aged up to 91 years old, yet Europeans arrived in Australia 229 years ago with evidence showing Aboriginal Australians were forcibly removed from the time of European settlement.
"So there was 138 years before these hair samples were collected in which anything could have happened in these communities and to these peoples," he said.
Professor Lambert said it was also well known that mitochondrial genomes alone were not sufficient to answer many of these questions.
Professor Cooper said his team had analysed a further 30 to 40 hair samples since the paper was completed, involving two more communities.
It hopes to have results from up to 1,000 samples within the next two years and already the team is looking to visit another three communities this year.
He said the research had been extended to investigate paternal lineages from nuclear DNA.
Preliminary results showed distinct DNA in males from different regions, but also indicated they did move more, which Professor Cooper said was consistent with traditional ceremonies and marriage patterns.
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