Journal article
Ancient nuclear genomes enable repatriation of Indigenous human remains
Griffith University Queensland1
Barapa Barapa Nation2
University of New South Wales3
Springbrook4
Novogene Corporation5
The University of Auckland6
Natural History Museum of Denmark7
University of Lausanne8
Department of Bio and Health Informatics, Technical University of Denmark9
Metagenomics, Department of Bio and Health Informatics, Technical University of Denmark10
Australian National University11
Gimuy Yidniji Elder12
Barkandji/Paakantyi Elder13
Ngiyampaa Elder14
Mutthi Mutthi Elder15
Thanynakwith Elder16
...and 6 moreAfter European colonization, the ancestral remains of Indigenous people were often collected for scientific research or display in museum collections. For many decades, Indigenous people, including Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians, have fought for their return. However, many of these remains have no recorded provenance, making their repatriation very difficult or impossible.
To determine whether DNA-based methods could resolve this important problem, we sequenced 10 nuclear genomes and 27 mitogenomes from ancient pre-European Aboriginal Australians (up to 1540 years before the present) of known provenance and compared them to 100 high-coverage contemporary Aboriginal Australian genomes, also of known provenance.
We report substantial ancient population structure showing strong genetic affinities between ancient and contemporary Aboriginal Australian individuals from the same geographic location. Our findings demonstrate the feasibility of successfully identifying the origins of unprovenanced ancestral remains using genomic methods.
Language: | English |
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Publisher: | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
Year: | 2018 |
Pages: | eaau5064 |
ISSN: | 23752548 |
Types: | Journal article |
DOI: | 10.1126/sciadv.aau5064 |
ORCIDs: | 0000-0002-2829-6400 , 0000-0002-7207-7395 , 0000-0001-6237-3898 , Rasmussen, Simon , 0000-0002-6288-6375 , 0000-0001-8622-4141 , 0000-0003-4760-1535 , 0000-0002-1918-8248 , 0000-0002-2375-3254 , 0000-0002-7081-6748 , 0000-0003-2818-8319 and 0000-0002-5821-3637 |