We present an Aboriginal Australian genomic sequence obtained from a 100-year-old lock of hair donated by an Aboriginal man from southern Western Australia in the early 20th century. We detect no evidence of European admixture and estimate contamination levels to be below 0.5%. We show that Aboriginal Australians are descendants of an early human dispersal into eastern Asia, possibly 62,000 to 75,000 years ago. This dispersal is separate from the one that gave rise to modern Asians 25,000 to 38,000 years ago. We also find evidence of gene flow between populations of the two dispersal waves prior to the divergence of Native Americans from modern Asian ancestors. Our findings support the hypothesis that present-day Aboriginal Australians descend from the earliest humans to occupy Australia, likely representing one of the oldest continuous populations outside Africa.

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Arctic genetics comes in from the cold Despite a well-characterized archaeological record, the genetics of the people who inhabit the Arctic have been unexplored. Raghavan et al. sequenced ancient and modern genomes of individuals from the North American Arctic (see the Perspective by Park). Analyses of these genomes indicate that the Arctic was colonized 6000 years ago by a migration separate from the one that gave rise to other Native American populations. Furthermore, the original paleo-inhabitants of the Arctic appear to have been completely replaced approximately 700 years ago. Science , this issue 10.1126/science.1255832 ; see also p. 1004