Papua New Guinean genetic diversity of populations intrigues scientists

17.9.17

Papua New Guinean genetic diversity of populations intrigues scientists: [gearsofbiz.com] Papua New Guinea is called a “stepping stone” in the human movement from Asia to Australia by the researchers. The team of researchers note that the differences in the genetic makeup of the population can be dated back to ten to twenty thousand years only rather than fifty thousand years back when humans first arrived. They found that agriculture was independently found on this island around ten thousand years ago, and this did not change the genetic makeup of the population as was the case in several populations across Europe and in some regions of Asia.

Anders Bergstr�m, a graduate student at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK, who was part of the study team, explained that agriculture tends to homogenize the genetic differences in populations. Sanger Institute geneticist Chris Tyler-Smith, lead researcher further explained that in the Europe for example when agriculture was brought in by the Anatolia farmers, the genetic makeup of the local hunter gatherers that lived then for generations completely got replaced by the new genetic features. This obliteration of the genetic picture is absent in New Guinea and this is a “big surprise” he said.