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Australia and the rest of the world was first settled by a single group of people who migrated from Africa more than 55,000 years ago, DNA research suggests.
A study of DNA samples from Aboriginal Australians and Melanesians from New Guinea, led by Peter Forster at the University of Cambridge, appears to verify the theory that all humans came from the same small group of Africans.
The Australian and New Guinean populations were found to share genetic features linking them those who left Africa up to 60,000 years ago.
"Although it has been speculated that the populations of Australia and New Guinea came from the same ancestors, the fossil record differs so significantly it has been difficult to prove," Dr Forster told Britain's The Times newspaper.
"For the first time, this evidence gives us a genetic link showing that the Australian Aboriginal and New Guinean populations are descended directly from the same specific group of people who emerged from the African migration."
Dr Forster, who is now at the Anglia Ruskin University, said the ancient Australians would have travelled from Africa via Arabia, Asia and the Malay peninsula, dispersing at a rate of about one kilometre per year.
The uniqueness of Australia's ancient Aborigines and archaeological finds in the country previously threatened to undermine the theory that humans are all descended from the same group.
Critics of the theory believe modern human beings may have evolved in several different places, arisen through interbreeding, or made several trips out of Africa.
They cited as evidence the fact skeletal and tool remains found in Australia are strikingly different from those on the "coastal expressway" the early settlers are supposed to have taken through south Asia.
- AAP
