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Research headed by professor Eske Willerslev from the Center for BioGenetics

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at the University of Copenhagen, shows that modern humans colonized the world twice.

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This is in contrast to previous scientific belief that humanity discovered

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the world outside Africa in one wave of emigration.

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And the reseach shows that the aboriginals, Australia's indigenous population,

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are today's sole descendants of this first wave of emigration.

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The four fathers of the aboriginals emigrated out aproximately

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70,000 year ago, and reached Australia around 50,000 years ago.

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It's actually quite amazing to imagine the journey that the

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ancestors of the aboriginal australians took. I mean,

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you have to remember at this time, 70,000 years ago,

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all of Asia was completly unexplored land for anatomical modern humans.

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So, while our ancestors, the asians and the europeans,

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were sitting somewhere in Africa or potentially in the Middle East,

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not daring, you can say, exploring the world,

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these guys actually swept across this completely untouched land

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reaching Australia at least 50,000 years ago and crossing the sea.

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The study is derived from the DNA of a 100 year old lock of hair like this.

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The lock of hair belongs to an aboriginal man

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from the Goldfield region of south Western Australia.

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The research team, from the University of Copenhagen,

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has succeded in isolating and mapping the genome from the lock of hair.

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This is possible because the DNA encapsulated in hair is quite well protected

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from the ravages of time.

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And the genome analysis has proved that modern humans,

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homo sapiens, populated the world in two waves.

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The first wave, from about 70,000 years ago, reaches all the way to Australia.

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The second wave, mixes with relatives of the aboriginals in Asia,

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but never reaches Australia.

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This really changes the conception of how genetically similar people are outside Africa.

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It now turns out that they are more diverse

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than we thought and, you know, one or two years from now

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it's very likely I think, that we will see other studies showing that

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there might have even been additional migration waves

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into Asia and Europe, that is not recognized today.