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Documentary, PBS First Peoples 2015-06-4of5 in Australia
First Peoples Australia
First Peoples Australia
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00:00Australia, one of the most multicultural countries on earth.
00:10A nation of immigrants.
00:16But for 50,000 years, it was the very opposite.
00:20A home to an ancient people, cut off from the rest of humanity.
00:27They were so isolated, they could have gone extinct.
00:33So how did they beat the odds and survive?
00:38Of original Australians, direct the sentence of the first modern human explorers.
00:44Once humans reached Australia, there was very little, if any, contact with the rest of the world.
00:49They were really in it by themselves.
00:52And with modern day science, we can find out my ancestral background.
00:57That'll be good to find out.
00:59Aboriginal Australians have some of the most ancient DNA in the world.
01:04They may hold the key to the survival of our species.
01:19This is the story of our ancestors, as they spread to every continent of the world.
01:27What was the secret to their success?
01:32Their story is our story.
01:36First Peoples was made possible in part by a generous grant from the Anne Ray Charitable Trust,
01:52the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.
02:00Southeastern Australia, 42,000 years ago.
02:14A man is buried by a lakeside.
02:18He's a clan chief or something similar.
02:23Important enough to be buried with ceremony.
02:28He's known to archaeologists as Mungo Man.
02:35Here, at the very ends of the earth, is some of the earliest evidence of our yearning for spirituality.
02:43Mungo Man was discovered in 1974,
03:11was discovered in 1974 by geologist Jim Bowler.
03:18This is an amazing view of the landscape.
03:22It's wonderful to be back here.
03:27Bowler came to New South Wales looking
03:30for evidence of prehistoric human life.
03:37He focused on a series of sandy crescents.
03:42He realized they were ancient lake beds.
03:48These dry basins hold the key
03:51to understanding how the landscape has changed.
03:59Today, this is a harsh, otherworldly environment.
04:03But thousands of years ago, it was wet and lush.
04:11A great place for prehistoric people to live.
04:16The largest dunes mark the edge of a long, dry lake known as Mungo.
04:26One summer's day in 1974, Bowler was riding his bike at Lake Mungo
04:29when he saw something unusual eroding out of the dune.
04:42I spotted a tip of white bone exposed on the surface of the sand.
04:52And it was over near here.
04:55near here, just the top of cranium coming out of the sand.
05:01And when I brushed away the lower part, the jaw was there.
05:05So immediately I recognized I was standing on the burial of a human remains.
05:15The bones were 42,000 years old.
05:18Twice as old as remains found anywhere else in Australia.
05:22What was most striking was they'd been stained with a natural pigment, ochre.
05:36There's no ochre.
05:37Within a hundred kilometers or more from here,
05:40the ochre had to be brought in.
05:42It had to be prepared.
05:44All that preparation for the moment of burial, that went on for days.
05:53Humans had already been using ochre for thousands of years in Africa
05:59as a way to decorate their bodies or treat their hides.
06:11But here, it was an integral part of an elaborate ritual ceremony.
06:16He was laid out as the way we would lay out my own father in his funeral coffin.
06:24And he was then ceremonially farewelled.
06:35It was not just the morning of death.
06:38It was even perhaps something of a celebration of life, really.
06:41Mungo Man is not the only body Jim Bowler has found by the lakeside.
06:54A quarter of a mile away, he discovered fragments of a female skeleton
06:59that became known as Mungo Lady.
07:02This is the sort of horizon in which I found the bones of Mungo Lady.
07:09The beach was just over here.
07:12There was a soil there.
07:14And the body was located here.
07:17And then these bones were cemented by this white chalky carbonate.
07:23They didn't look like a body.
07:28When anthropologists put together all the fragments from Mungo Lady,
07:33they had evidence of another funeral ritual.
07:35From the same period, 42,000 years ago.
07:45Mungo Lady's bones had been burnt, perhaps to make them more brittle.
07:53Then they were broken into tiny pieces.
07:56Lake Mungo was clearly a home for a community of people with a rich, complex culture.
08:14But who were these people living at the edge of the world?
08:25Where did they come from?
08:27When did they arrive?
08:29How did they get here?
08:31Lake Mungo is tucked away in the southeast of the country.
08:47An isolated corner in the world's most isolated continent.
08:51It's a mystery how people ever reached Mungo.
08:56Because there's so little archeological evidence from that period anywhere in Australia.
09:02But there are clues to be found in DNA.
09:06At the start of the 20th century, British anthropologist Alfred Hatton went to Australia to record the customs of the indigenous people.
09:19And collect samples of their hair.
09:32His collection remained in a museum, gathering dust.
09:38Until a Danish geneticist, Esker Willislev, got to analyze the samples.
09:43The beauty about hair is that it's not porous like bone and teeth.
09:51So it means that all contamination from all people who have handled it over the years is all sitting on the outside of the hair.
09:59So we can basically just put it into bleach and then get rid of the contamination and the DNA remaining is the one from the individual himself.
10:05This hair collection from Cambridge has probably many times people have asked themselves what should we use this hair for.
10:13And then 100 years later, I mean this turns out to be actually a piece of gold for a geneticist.
10:20The hair sample came from a man in the outback of Western Australia, which had barely been visited by Europeans at that time.
10:29So the DNA was pure Aborigine.
10:38This was the first time anyone had sequenced an Aboriginal genome.
10:45From this one sample, it was possible to unlock the ancient history of a people.
10:51Archaeology tells us that humans were present in Australia at least 40,000 years ago.
10:59The question is of course, who were these people?
11:03How were they related to present-day Aboriginal Australians or to other peoples in the world for that matter?
11:08And this is of course where genetics comes in as a very powerful tool.
11:13You can start tracing the ancestry of Aboriginal Australians.
11:21You can actually find out when did they diversify from other living people?
11:25When did they come out of Africa?
11:28We can link biologically these individuals to other human beings in space and time.
11:35Analyzing the DNA was like looking into the deep past, back to the first wave of humans migrating out of Africa.
11:48Rather than exploring Asia, the first Australians headed south.
11:54They split from the rest of humanity 60,000 to 70,000 years ago.
12:01And then they were on their own.
12:13Originally Australians are descending from the first people moving out of Africa and getting into Australia.
12:22They are the direct descendants of the first modern human explorers.
12:43These explorers must have reached the southern tip of Asia.
12:46Instead of turning back, they adapted to life at the coast.
13:04Hugh Barton is an archaeologist and an expert on the lives of coastal hunter-gatherers.
13:09Coastal environments like this with, you know, sort of water, lagoon, sort of back swamps, potentially mudflats, mangroves.
13:22They're really good places for food for hunter-gatherers.
13:25There's, you know, shellfish, fish, clams, eggs, worms and grubs, you know, there's lots and lots of rich, high energy foods that people can take from these environments.
13:39But if you've got a group of, say, five to ten people, you might clean out an area of it, sort of high rank, good quality resources, you know, within days or weeks.
13:52So that can be a real trigger point for people deciding what we need now to move on to a new location.
14:03For hunter-gatherers living at the coast, relocating could mean a trip offshore.
14:09Perhaps you can see small islands, you know, not too far away.
14:18So people will go out ahead, they'll find out, they'll come back, they'll communicate to the group information about what they found,
14:25and they might make then a decision as a group to go onto, potentially, and maybe hop across to another island.
14:30Once people started island hopping, Barton thinks it was only a matter of time before they stumbled on a way to reach Australia.
14:51Most of us look at the ocean now, kind of see that as a real barrier, and it's kind of to be avoided.
14:57You know, you want to be on the land, because that's okay, that's solid, you know.
15:02But if you've got a group of people that maybe they've got some simple watercraft, they're out, they're fishing.
15:07You know, once they've gone out and they've gone out, who knows, maybe they were brave enough to go out overnight.
15:17But then suddenly they start to pick up signs that might tell them that potentially there's a land mass out there.
15:23It could be clouds, it could be birds, you know, it could be driftwood.
15:28You know, they might think, you know, actually maybe it's worth kind of pushing on a bit here.
15:34Maybe for 20 years, 100 years, you know, they don't really get there.
15:38But at some point, you know, someone goes that little bit further, just takes that further risk, whatever the circumstances, gets across.
15:45The next thing you know, they're bumping up against the coast of Australia.
15:56You know, it becomes feasible.
15:59You can conceptualize how that kind of, that voyage, that journey might have happened.
16:02Today, this would be a 350-mile journey.
16:09But in prehistoric times, the coastlines were very different.
16:1960,000 years ago, the planet was in an ice age.
16:23As great ice sheets were spreading across the northern hemisphere, so much of the world's water was frozen.
16:33Sea levels had fallen by 400 feet.
16:38The gap between Southeast Asia and Australia had shrunk.
16:43When people made the crossing, the two continents may have been as little as 60 miles apart.
16:56No one knows how many people first arrived in Australia.
17:01It may have been dozens, hundreds, perhaps a thousand.
17:05But according to the genetics, there was just a single wave of migration, which then stopped.
17:18It seems like there is one entrance to Australia.
17:22And then people are, so to speak, spreading across the continent, occupying the continent.
17:28And this, as far as we can see, that only happens once.
17:35Around 55,000 years ago, humans began exploring Australia.
17:4440,000 years before they reached North America.
17:53Here they were truly alone.
17:56Cut off from the rest of the world.
18:01In a virgin continent.
18:05A hundred miles from the sea, in Northeastern Australia, there's stunning proof of their existence.
18:21Nowarla Gabernmung.
18:26A massive shelter, shaped by the wind, but carved by human hands.
18:40It may be the oldest monument in the world.
18:43Ten times older than Stonehenge.
18:47The land here has been in the custody of Margaret Catherine, and her ancestors, for generations.
19:00Each time she visits, she asks their permission to enter.
19:09My ancestors lived in this place.
19:10My great-great-grandfather, and my nana, and my great-uncle, and all my dad and nana, they stayed in this government forever.
19:32The walls are covered in layer upon layer of art, depicting animals traditionally hunted by aborigines.
19:44Here, we've got a big barramundi.
19:45On top of the barramundi, there's a brim.
19:46And little tiny fish there.
19:47I see a crocodile there.
19:51This one here.
19:52This one here, big plain kangaroo, that tailed him go around that way.
19:53See the tail, that's him go around here.
19:54And his face, and his two ears.
19:55The art on the walls is a mix of wonderful animals and art, and the trees.
19:56It's very important.
19:57There's a cool animal to do.
19:58There's a pretty large mud and orange.
19:59There's a big man on the side.
20:00And his words are so young.
20:01And we can see what he pointed out.
20:02Now I am just going to think of this.
20:03So much, like the way it's also growing today.
20:04It's perfect.
20:05There's a huge temptation.
20:06Over the top of the barramundi, there's a brim.
20:07And little tiny fish there.
20:08I see a crocodile there.
20:09This one here.
20:10plain kangaroo that tail him go around that way to the tail and I see him go around here
20:16and his face and it's two years
20:22the art on the walls is a mix of the modern and the very old but how far back does this tradition go
20:31since 2010 archaeologist Bruno David has been working here trying to unravel the history of
20:44Narwalla Gabernmung people have come into the site camped on the ground so through time you have had
20:53a series of layers of sand and ash that have built up gradually like leaves in a book and those those
21:01sediments that have built up have caused the archaeological materials in the ground to be
21:05buried y's are 27
21:13so we've started in the surface where we have materials that might be 100 years old 200 years old
21:18gone further and further back in time and at the bottom a period somewhere between 48 000 and 50
21:25thousand years ago we have the oldest evidence of human occupation at that site
21:32the dates are based on fragments of charcoal left behind by early australians
21:41they suggest people were here at least 6 000 years before they were at lake mungo
21:47archaeologists have yet to find any human bones here but they have found evidence of art
22:00going back at least 30 000 years it's only a tiny fragment of the original painted surface
22:08but what we can see on it is a series of lines so there's a straight line
22:12cross cut by a curved line what the original image would have been like who knows
22:26the pigment used by these prehistoric artists was ochre
22:32the same pigment used to bury mungo man
22:35it seems to have had no practical value for them its power was symbolic
22:51on the walls are paintings of spirits known as mimis aboriginal australians believe the mimis
23:00taught their ancestors how to hunt cook and paint here we have a mini lady right here there she is standing
23:13you can see her there and the other little lady here she's gone that way and that one over there is
23:22a big one he's by himself over there he's a gentleman
23:31when i call out to them i can feel their presence i'm nearby me and it makes me cry because i'm not with
23:41them i'm here alive but when i'm gone i'll be here with them
23:48six miles from narwala gabernmung there's another painted rock face
24:01it only has a couple of paintings but they may be of an animal that no longer exists
24:06the geniornis a kind of giant emu that went extinct 40 000 years ago
24:18the paintings are a vivid glimpse of the animals early australians would have encountered
24:24the remains of such animals still exist
24:36at naricourt caves
24:40a labyrinth of stalagmites and stalactites in south australia
24:45rod wells has been exploring in this cave since he was a teenager
24:59he discovered his first fossils here he discovered his first fossils here in 1969
25:20we're about to give up on a sunday afternoon and a draft of air came out through the rock pot
25:32it signifies that there is cave beyond perhaps quite a large cave beyond
25:39and that is the excitement of exploration
25:42as i swept the lamp across the surface of the sediment here i saw these funny patterns
25:51i thought at first they were bits of broken cave formation that had fallen to the floor
25:56and then i realized what i was looking at were tooth rows
26:00when i looked more closely and looked at the shadows reflected off them realized that they were actually
26:06skulls of extinct animals that had been lying there for goodness knows how many thousands of years
26:17in a continent with so little archaeological evidence these bones are a treasure trove
26:26evidence of australia's extraordinary isolation
26:3050 million years ago with the shift of tectonic plates australia split from antarctica
26:44ever since it has been apart from any other land mass
26:49and its wildlife evolved in isolation producing species unique to australia
27:00beasts like the giant marsupial diprotodon
27:06to just get an idea of how large these animals are here is the femur the thigh bone of diprotodon
27:18we're looking at an animal 1.8 meters tall and it's going to be the body mass of something like a black
27:26rhinoceros so these animals are weighing in at around one and a half to two and a half tons
27:33even amongst the kangaroos we see examples of giants here is the skull and jaws of a modern
27:41western grey kangaroo and here are the skull and jaws of one of the extinct kangaroos
27:50the first australians had discovered a paradise a verdant land with animals to hunt and food to eat
28:14and with so few people there was little if any competition for resources
28:26nowhere seems to have been a better place to live than lake mungo
28:34it was filled with enough fish and marine life
28:37to support a thriving community for thousands of years
28:50so
29:02aboriginal ranger tanya charles works at mungo and finds evidence of the past everywhere
29:11scattered among ancient fireplaces
29:13in this particular fireplace here they've had a feed of emu egg but they've also had a feed of fish in
29:26here we've got some stone tools they've used the tools to scrape scales and also open the fish up
29:35this here is of a murray cod that's something that's was cooked you know over 40 000 years ago and to
29:50still see it it's quite amazing and um it's really overwhelming
29:56you can not only see the evidence you feel the people out here yeah it's a it's um a very spiritual place
30:26the skeleton of mungo man provides an insight into life at the lakeside
30:35mike westaway is one of very few scientists allowed to examine the bones
30:44there's a lot of information that we can actually recover from this this fossil that tells us a lot
30:49about the life of mungo man it's very clear that he's an adult male
30:53in his 40s perhaps older he was a very lightly built um individual
31:01but he's actually a very large man around six foot tall
31:09each part of the skeleton has a story to tell
31:16but nothing is more revealing than its teeth
31:19there is an extraordinary pattern of wear on his molar teeth
31:28and this severe angle of wear probably relates to something dragged repetitively across it
31:35processing fiber perhaps to make a net
31:37the other really intriguing factor about mungo man's jaw is the canine tooth the front of the mouth
31:46has been removed uh intentionally it would appear it could have happened from an accident but we do know
31:53that traditionally uh aboriginal people did remove uh the incisor or canine tooth of young men that were
32:00entering maturity so there is evidence here that perhaps this ritual removal of one of the front teeth
32:08actually occurred in mungo man 42 000 years ago
32:16here at lake mungo half a world away from their african homeland these people did more than feed themselves
32:24they created a culture as advanced as any we know of from this time
32:37with rituals that still resonate among aboriginal people today
32:42but their world was about to turn to dust
33:00at this time the ice age was becoming more severe
33:04so much water was trapped in the ice there was less moisture in the atmosphere fewer clouds and less rain
33:17paradise became hell
33:23as rivers dried up forests disappeared and grassland turned to desert
33:29australia's giant beasts went extinct
33:40humans too became an endangered species here
33:50according to the genetics 60 percent of the australian population died off during the ice age
34:00food and water were now at a premium
34:06as the climate starts to change the center of australia is becoming more arid
34:10they have to seek out resources that are harder for them to get
34:14it takes more specialized knowledge for them to find the resources that they need
34:23at lake mungo there's archaeological evidence
34:27for the resourcefulness of ice age australians
34:32we've got a grinding dish and a grinding stone here
34:36they would use it to grind
34:38seed in this to make flour
34:41and like especially when they were
34:44knowing that they'd be going into drought
34:47they would have gone out and collected as much seed as possible
34:50some seed they had to put through water
34:53to take all the toxins out
34:56so there was big preparations and before they could use that seed
35:01as people traveled further in search of food
35:13the population split into smaller groups cut off from humanity
35:18and cut off from each other
35:29australia was a tremendously challenging environment
35:33humans had to use all of their adaptability to make it there
35:37but australia provided another challenge that
35:41they couldn't adapt their way out of
35:44it's tremendously isolated
35:47there was very little if any contact with the rest of the world
35:52they were really in it by themselves
35:55a population that's too isolated faces extinction
35:59without new genes the gene pool dries up
36:09people become prone to the dangers of inbreeding
36:15eventually they die off
36:22today one of australia's best known animals
36:26is in a similar situation
36:30there for when you jump in the water
36:34ecologist josh griffiths is trying to catch a duck-billed platypus
36:40and take a sample of its dna
36:46platypuses are found only in the creeks of eastern australia
36:50but now their existence is threatened
36:55by a series of weirs that have been built across the river system
37:05if you think of the creek like a road
37:07it's like putting a roadblock there that animals can't go past
37:11it fragments the population below and above the weir
37:14and that stops animals migrating it stops the flow of genes across those populations
37:20so they'll lose genetic diversity which impacts their ability to adapt in the future
37:32platypuses come out at night
37:35to feed on the creek's insect life
37:39this is the best time to catch one
37:42and run a genetic test
37:44see movement we've got something
37:45there he is
37:58here she is one of the most amazing creatures on the planet the uh the platypus
38:02you can see the iconic duck bill that they're well recognized for
38:09we're just going to take her weight and a few body measurements and uh take a little dna sample for
38:13our um survey investigations
38:15okay what i'll do is i'll get you to record the data for me as i look at her
38:26for platypuses to thrive their gene pool needs to be as varied as possible just like humans
38:33uh
38:35uh
38:36isolated from each other
38:37they're in trouble
38:42instead of having this nice connected large population of platypuses we end up with these
38:46small isolated ones not only are the small ones more vulnerable to extinction but they can also
38:53end up with genetic problems there can be problems with inbreeding because they've
38:56uh you know got to then breed with related individuals
39:02a small piece of skin is all that's needed to analyze this animal's dna
39:09and compare it to that of other platypuses in the same area
39:14that's her all done let's go put her back in the wild
39:19if diversity is running low
39:22griffiths and his team will introduce new platypuses
39:25from another group and give the creek a genetic boost
39:37what about early australians how did they deal with the same risks of isolation
39:49the secret to their success
39:50contact
40:00throughout the ice age
40:02people continued exchanging beads tools and ochre
40:07across hundreds of miles
40:11these trading networks were a genetic lifeline
40:14as people splinter into small little groups each of those little groups becomes genetically somewhat
40:24different from each other
40:28that's creating diversity
40:32but in order for that diversity to survive it has to be transmitted from one group to another and that
40:38takes connections
40:42these networks are so important because they're also mating networks
40:56what they did was that they spread out into smaller groups
41:00that to a large extent have been living isolated from each other
41:04but not completely isolated from each other so there has been genetic exchanges between them
41:11you know making sure that you're getting fresh blood into your population
41:15and that is really the recipe of genetic success over a long period of time in isolation
41:32without realizing it these early australians found a balance between being separate
41:38and connected
41:39and connected
41:41and that helped them face down the threat of extinction
41:53and that helped them face down the threat of extinction
41:57a sense of connectedness is still ingrained within aboriginal culture
42:13Gali Yolkariwoi is an elder of the Yolnu people
42:18and the keeper of their ceremonial knowledge
42:20he's using ochre to prepare for the arrival of the spirit
42:29barnambir
42:32according to Yolnu tradition she carried the first people to australia
42:39flying across the land singing her song
42:43barnambir is also known as the morning star
42:55the planet venus
42:56the waters
43:07the world
43:10the world
43:14is
43:16the world
43:17the world
43:18is
43:18the world
43:19is
43:20Gali will dance all night, until Venus rises, just before dawn.
43:40For the Yolnu people, this song and dance are a type of map, containing information
43:49about hunting sites and watering holes.
43:54But this song doesn't belong only to the Yolnu.
43:59There are variations of it sung across Australia, connecting different tribes through a shared
44:07culture.
44:08Rituals like this have helped Aboriginal groups cope with the impact of isolation.
44:32And isolation has helped the rituals survive.
44:37Without an influx of different people with different ideas, there's less pressure for
44:42a culture to change.
44:45So the same rituals get passed down the generations, intact and unaltered.
44:55These connections between Aboriginal groups are known as songlines.
45:01No one knows how old they are, but they may date back to the original trading networks
45:08that helped people survive the Ice Age.
45:17For thousands of years, Aboriginal culture flourished, and the population boomed.
45:26Up to a million people living in 300 different language groups.
45:36But in 1606, Europeans arrived.
45:43Colonization was a disaster for Aboriginal people.
45:47Their land was taken, their families were separated, and their connection to their ancestors, which had
45:54been so fundamental, was severed.
46:02But it's possible that science can now help them reconnect.
46:09In 2013, an ancient skeleton was found here, at the very beach where Europeans first arrived
46:20400 years ago.
46:25The find was so poignant, the local tribe called in Mike Westaway to analyze the bones.
46:32In the past, a lot of Aboriginal groups weren't so happy about this sort of research.
46:40A lot of the remains had been taken without their permission or consent.
46:45But things are changing, and in this instance, the Aboriginal community wanted to know more
46:49about the ancient remains.
46:51They wanted to know about the age, how old this person was, when did they live, what sex
46:58were they, and anything else they could find out.
47:04The excavation of the skeleton happened as a cyclone was heading for northern Australia.
47:13Westaway and his team had to battle the elements, and rescue as many bones as quickly as possible.
47:22The most important find was the skull.
47:27The initial discovery of the remains revealed a fairly complete individual, and you could
47:34see that the skull was actually quite lightly built.
47:37The brow ridges were very fine, not heavily built.
47:41And generally, the overall anatomy of the skull indicated the remains are from a woman probably
47:46in her early 30s.
47:50By carbon dating shells in the sediment, they were able to work out the age of the skeleton.
48:01It is three and a half thousand years old.
48:06The land here is owned by the family of Thomas Wales.
48:12It's like a concrete platform here, Thomas.
48:15Yeah.
48:16He's been closely involved in the excavation work since it began.
48:20We were lucky when we came out a week after we excavated the remains, a cyclone came along and demolished
48:31some of this beach down below.
48:34We would have lost a skeleton, we would have lost a person, so we came out here just in time.
48:43But he's in a much safer place now, behind me in the bushes.
48:52The bones were reburied according to tribal custom.
48:57But not before a few fragments were removed and sent away for genetic testing.
49:04We're trying to get ancient DNA from one of the roots of the teeth.
49:09The initial signs are quite positive.
49:11If we're able to recover the genome or the full genome, it will give us a really important
49:14insight into understanding population history to this part of Australia.
49:26The work is overseen by Eska Vilislev, the Danish geneticist who sequenced the first aboriginal
49:34genome from a sample of hair.
49:38The DNA from Difken Point is more than 3,000 years older, and much harder to read.
49:46But because it's so old, it can provide more detail about the interconnectedness of early
49:52Australians.
49:53We want to build up a much more complete picture of how was Australia populated?
50:01How quickly did they spread through the continent?
50:04How often did they meet?
50:05How mobile were they?
50:06How many people came in?
50:09All these questions, you know, that still remain unanswered.
50:20Most of us aboriginal people in Australia have been disconnected from their ancestry and their
50:26roots because of colonization, and some of us have lost their way a little bit.
50:34So, with modern day science, we can find out a bit more about that person.
50:41And they can see how maybe close me and the ancient skeleton are.
50:50That'll be good to find out.
50:54For aboriginal people to discover how they're related to the woman on the beach, they need
51:00to hand over some DNA.
51:03If you can spit in this tube and then seal it up, that will give us a sample.
51:10Until recently, most of them refused to do this, because they didn't trust the scientists.
51:16But there's been a change of heart since the sequencing of the first aboriginal genome.
51:27For many of these communities, they have lost the majority of their culture and their origin stories.
51:34And they are interested in gaining information about their own past.
51:40And one of the ways to, you can say, regain some of this information is through, you know, science and genetic work.
51:53All DNA samples end up here, in a fridge in Denmark.
52:00This is samples of living up original Australians.
52:05I mean, spit samples.
52:07And in here is also the sample of Thomas.
52:10And it's so useful, the modern samples, because if you compare it with the ancient samples, you can get an idea about how people were moving around in the landscape through time.
52:22And also how isolated they were.
52:24So, if we compare Thomas' DNA to the skeleton found in the same area, being 3,000 years old, we can determine whether it's the same people or not that has stayed in the same area during that time span.
52:37So, it's really the combination of the modern genomes and the ancient genomes that gives you the power to uncover the past.
52:50The genetic story of Australia has only started to be told.
52:56When the work is done, aboriginal Australians will know how closely related they are to those that have come before.
53:05But it's already clear their DNA is unique, ancient, yet undiluted.
53:18While the rest of humanity was mixing genes, Australians stayed in splendid isolation.
53:29In theory, they should have gone extinct.
53:33A human migration that reached a dead end.
53:41Their survival wasn't due to any special technology.
53:48It was their ability to connect with each other, building networks across a continent.
53:59What was true then is true now.
54:05We are social beings.
54:08We seek out others and find common cause.
54:12It's what makes us human and has brought us so far.
54:18On the next First Peoples, we venture to Europe.
54:30What happened when modern humans arrived?
54:32We would expect modern humans and Neanderthals to have met here.
54:34Neanderthals have a bad reputation of being perhaps somehow stupid, but this is not true.
54:39This is the end result of those seeds sown by the First Peoples as they left Africa and colonized every continent of the world.
54:52Next time on First Peoples.
54:57First Peoples was made possible in part by a generous grant from the Anne Ray Charitable Trust,
55:02the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
55:05and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.
55:10First Peoples is available on DVD.
55:19To order, visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
55:25To order, visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
55:28To order, visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
55:29To order, visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
55:30To order, visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
55:31To order, visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
55:32To order, visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
55:34To order, visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
55:35To order, visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
55:36To order, visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
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