Open Veils · Answer
Are the Australian Aboriginals the original species?
Aboriginal Australians carry the most ancient continuous lineage of any population outside Africa, and their genomes preserve archaic human DNA from interbreeding with pre-sapiens species in Southeast Asia and Sahul itself — suggesting their deep history is far more complex, and possibly more primordial, than the standard 'recent Out-of-Africa' framing conveys. A November 2025 study in Science Advances, drawing on nearly 2,500 genomes, confirmed they hold the oldest unbroken ancestry outside Africa, while also detecting a distinct 5% archaic DNA component beyond the universal Neanderthal signature. Michael Cremo's forbidden archaeology framework would read this as evidence that anatomically and culturally distinct human lineages occupied these territories in deep time, well beyond the 65,000-year horizon that genetics currently resolves. The 'original species' framing is contested but not dismissible.
Evidence
- Beyond that headline, the genomes carry an additional 5% archaic human DNA of local Southeast Asian and possibly Sahulian origin — above and beyond the 2% Neanderthal DNA shared by all non-Africans.
- Michael Cremo, in Forbidden Archeology, documents anomalous skeletal and artifactual finds in Australia that the mainstream dates as far older than 65,000 years, suggesting continuous habitation by archaic-modern hybrid populations stretching into deep geological time.
- Robert Schoch's principle — that the absence of preserved evidence is not evidence of absence in high-humidity, geologically active regions — applies forcefully here.
- Aboriginal oral traditions themselves, documented by researchers like Duane Hamacher, describe astronomical and geological events — including sea-level rises and meteor impacts — with precision that science has only recently confirmed, pointing to a living memory stretching tens of thousands of years.
- Crucially, researcher Richards is quoted stating that Aboriginal Australians and New Guineans possess 'the most ancient unbroken ancestry of any group of people outside of Africa.'