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From: "Kerr-Mudd, John" <admin@127.0.0.1>
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology.paleo,sci.archaeology
Subject: Re: Neanderthal DNA may refute 65,000-year-old date for human
 occupation in Australia
Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2025 09:41:55 +0100
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On Fri, 4 Jul 2025 23:09:55 -0600
Primum Sapienti <invalide@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> 
> https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/human-evolution/neanderthal-dna-may-refute-65-000-year-old-date-for-human-occupation-in-australia-but-not-all-experts-are-convinced
> 
> Humans did not arrive in Australia 65,000 years ago,
> and likely didn't reach the land down under until
> around 50,000 years ago, a controversial new paper
> reports.
> 
> The reasoning behind the finding is that modern
> humans didn't mate with Neanderthals until around
> 50,000 years ago, but Indigenous Australians have a
> small percentage of Neanderthal DNA. So, the first
> Australians could not have arrived until after
> humans mated with Neanderthals.
> 
> But we can't yet rule out archaeological evidence
> that places humans on the continent much earlier
> than genetic models do, other experts say.
> ...
> 
Of course not; what if the people that arrived 65,000 years ago were
"pure" human, and a subsequent people ("contaminated" by Neaderthal genes)
immigrated later than 50,000 years ago and interbred in the
subsequent years?

What's needed is some DNA from bones from 55,000 years ago.


> 
> https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/arco.70002
> 
> Recent DNA Studies Question a 65 kya Arrival of
> Humans in Sahul
> 
> ABSTRACT
> Recent reports present evidence of Neanderthal
> introgression among all non-African human
> populations after 50 kya. Here we trace the
> implications of this claim for Sahul history.
> If correct, ancestral Sahul populations bearing
> Neanderthal DNA must have arrived after this date.
> Such data offer no support for a purported 65 kya
> human presence on the continent.
> ...
> 
> 
> There is a questioning response here
> 
> https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/arco.70005
> 
> which unfortunately is in image pdf format. The
> response is short, relates that all but one Sahul
> site dates are 50kya or less and that the authors
> of the paper relied on only two genomic papers.


-- 
Bah, and indeed Humbug.