The most fundamental and general questions in science are those about origins: for example the origins of the cosmos, the origin of biological systems, and of course, the origin of species. Not surprisingly, since the beginnings of modern evolutionary biology there has been considerable interest in human evolution itself.

Previously thought to be the birthplace of archaic humans, South East Asia plays an important role in our understanding of human evolution. While Africa is almost universally recognised today as the geographic origin of all members of our species, South East Asia is the origin of archaic forms such as Homo floresiensis, and recent studies have dated South East Asian rock art to a similar age to that found in Europe.

The late Alan Thorne argued for an independent origin of some human populations, including Aboriginal Australians, known as the multiregional theory. In 2001, Thorne and his colleagues published putative ancient DNA sequences of some Aboriginal Australians, including Mungo Man, the oldest known Aboriginal Australian. Controversially, the authors suggested that the latter was not an Aboriginal Australian but instead represented an earlier extinct human lineage. In partnership with the Willandra Lakes Elders, we retested this research and reported the results in 2016. We rejected the authenticity of the DNA sequences reported by Thorne and his colleagues, suggesting that they were likely contaminants. We showed that Aboriginal Australians were undoubtedly the First People of this land, based on authentic ancient DNA obtained from the remains of a person buried close to Mungo Man.

In parallel, we have recently reported the results of a contemporary genomic study of a large number of Aboriginal Australians from across the continent in order to better understand human origins. From these data, we showed that humans likely migrated out-of-Africa as a single population, refuting the multiregional theory. In addition, we estimated the time of separation of Aboriginal Australians and Papuans from Eurasians, as well as that between Aboriginal Australians and Papuans.

I will review the major findings of the above studies and map out likely future directions.