The Aboriginal Heritage Project: using genetics to examine 50,000 years of Aboriginal Australian history
I will outline the Aboriginal Heritage Project: a collaboration between the Australian Centre of Ancient DNA (ACAD) and the South Australian Museum (SAM) that aims to reconstruct the genetic history of Aboriginal Australia. The project leverages the unparalleled collection of 5000+ hair samples curated by the SAM along with cultural, morphometric and genealogical data, which were collated by Joseph B. Birdsell and Norman B. Tindale during extensive anthropological expeditions across Australia between 1926 to 1963. I will present our outreach activities, which involve re-consenting the hair samples through in-depth consultation with Aboriginal Australian families and communities, along with results from 111 Aboriginal mitogenomes that reveal striking phylogeographic patterns dating back to the initial colonization of Australia.
Ultimately, we aim to provide a reference map that current and future generations of Aboriginal people can use to retrace their ancestry - including the displaced Stolen Generations and their descendants - whilst illuminating this remarkable but still largely unknown chapter of human history to the rest of world.
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