{"id":3341,"date":"2019-04-18T21:32:05","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T12:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/163.180.4.222\/lab\/?p=3341"},"modified":"2019-04-18T21:32:06","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T12:32:06","slug":"indigenous-groups-look-to-ancient-dna-to-bring-their-ancestors-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/?p=3341","title":{"rendered":"Indigenous groups look to ancient DNA to bring their ancestors home"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Local communities and geneticists are working together to sequence DNA from remains that were taken from their homelands decades ago.<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\"David<\/picture>\n
\n
David Edwards, a Mutthi Mutthi elder, welcomes the return of remains that had been taken long ago. Credit: Lisa Maree Williams\/Getty<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Several years ago, Gudju Gudju Fourmile welcomed back several members of his Yidinji community who had been taken from their homes in northern Australia almost a century ago. Like many other Indigenous communities in Australia, the Yidinji have worked for decades to bring the bodies of their ancestors home \u2014 which Aboriginal communities describe as returning to Country.<\/p>\n

Many of the ancestors are off Country as a result of the dehumanizing practices of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when it was common for white collectors to loot graves and sell the remains of Aboriginal people to museums in Australia, the United Kingdom and other countries. \u201cWhen our remains are off Country, we try to make sure they come back,\u201d says Fourmile, an elder in the community who lives in Cairns. \u201cThey need to be comfortable. That\u2019s a big thing for many tribal groups.\u201d And when his community finally reburied its ancestors in 2014, \u201ceverybody was so happy. And the Country felt good again,\u201d Fourmile says.<\/p>\n

Before the Yidinji elders laid their ancestors to rest, they received a request from scientists who had been analysing the DNA of living community members: could they sequence the ancestors\u2019 genomes, too? With permission granted, a team led by evolutionary geneticist David Lambert at Griffith University in Brisbane extracted DNA from the remains of one individual, and confirmed that the ancient person was closely related to Yidinji people alive today1<\/a><\/sup>,<\/sup>2<\/a><\/sup>. \u201cWhen you find something out like that, you jump for joy,\u201d says Fourmile. The event also marked a turning point in the mindset of the community, he says, when members started to realize the potential of DNA analysis to help bring their people back home.<\/p>\n

In the past 30 years or so, museums have responded to complaints by repatriating thousands of human remains and sacred objects to Indigenous Australian groups such as the Yidinji. But many more \u2014 possibly thousands \u2014 lack the information necessary to return them to one of the dozens of distinct Indigenous groups in Australia. That is a source of great distress for communities. Lambert\u2019s team published a study in 2018 showing that ten remains, including those of one ancient Yidinji individual, could be linked to specific Indigenous communities through genetics1<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n

Now, two teams in Australia, including Lambert\u2019s, are partnering with Indigenous communities to create genomic maps that connect ancient and historical remains with present-day groups. Such catalogues could eventually be used to help return remains to the right communities.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n