Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
This is because the migrants when they disperse take only a sample of the
genes of the founding population with them. But a puzzle remains. The tribes
of New Guinea have slightly dif erent mitochondrial DNA from Australian
aborigines, suggesting a separate migration across the more northern islands
tribes apparently not commingle across the great land bridge that connected
them? It is possible that there were early migrants from New Guinea into
Australia and that they were replaced by later arrivals from Southeast Asia,
confusing the story.
Reliving the migration
Although the genetic evidence is lacking, artifacts clearly show that people
were moving south through parts of the great land bridge that connected
Australia and New Guinea. On the way they built fi res, and used ocher peb-
bles that they found on the stony beach to decorate themselves and to draw
pictures and symbols.
One can still get some notion of what their experience might have been
like. The Tiwi Islands lie in the Arafura Sea to the west of the Torres Strait
were part of the land bridge that connected New Guinea to Australia. Now
the Tiwis are a pair of large fl at islands, covered with acacia forest and home
to about 2,000 Aboriginal people with their own distinct culture and elegant
art.
Even though the Tiwi Islanders are separated by only a narrow channel
from the mainland, they are the most genetically distinct of all the Australian
tribes. Their fi ngerprints show signifi cantly dif erent patterns from those of
the mainland tribes, and they tend to have a lighter skin color.
One bright winter's day I wandered along the sweeping pebble-strewn
beach that fringes the southern shore of Melville Island, the larger of the two
Tiwi Islands. The fl at coast of the Australian mainland was clearly visible
across the narrow Clarence Strait. Among the many colored pebbles on the
beach were numerous chunks of ocher, iron oxide mixed with various other
