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Wright JL, Wasef S, Heupink TH, Westaway MC, Rasmussen S, Pardoe C, Fourmile GG, Young M, Johnson T, Slade J, Kennedy R, Winch P, Pappin M, Wales T, Bates W“B, Hamilton S, Whyman N, van Holst Pellekaan S, McAllister PJ, Taçon PS, Curnoe D, Li R, Millar C, Subramanian S, Willerslev E, Malaspinas AS, Sikora M, Lambert DM. Ancient nuclear genomes enable repatriation of Indigenous human remains. Sci Adv 2018; 4:eaau5064. [PMID: 30585290 PMCID: PMC6300400 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aau5064] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/17/2018] [Accepted: 11/20/2018] [Indexed: 05/21/2023]
Abstract
After 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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joanne L. Wright
- Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia
| | - Sally Wasef
- Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia
| | - Tim H. Heupink
- Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia
- Global Health Institute, Epidemiology and Social Medicine, University of Antwerp, Belgium
| | - Michael C. Westaway
- Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia
| | - Simon Rasmussen
- DTU Bioinformatics, Department of Bio and Health Informatics, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Colin Pardoe
- Department of Archaeology and Natural History, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
| | | | - Michael Young
- Barkandji/Paakantyi Elder, Red Cliffs, VIC, Australia
| | - Trish Johnson
- Barkandji/Paakantyi Elder, Pooncarie, NSW, Australia
| | - Joan Slade
- Ngiyampaa Elder, Ivanhoe, NSW, Australia
| | | | - Patsy Winch
- Mutthi Mutthi Elder, Balranald, NSW, Australia
| | - Mary Pappin
- Mutthi Mutthi Elder, Broken Hill, NSW, Australia
| | - Tapij Wales
- Thanynakwith Elder, Napranum, QLD, Australia
| | | | | | | | - Sheila van Holst Pellekaan
- School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | | | - Paul S.C. Taçon
- Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia
| | - Darren Curnoe
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage and Paleontology, Geobiology and Earth Archives Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Ruiqiang Li
- Novogene Bioinformatics Institute, Beijing, China
| | - Craig Millar
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
| | - Sankar Subramanian
- Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia
- GeneCology Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, QLD, Australia
| | - Eske Willerslev
- Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK
| | - Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas
- Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
- SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Martin Sikora
- Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Corresponding author. (M.S.); (D.M.L.)
| | - David M. Lambert
- Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia
- Corresponding author. (M.S.); (D.M.L.)
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