Marching plays a significant role in the history of various countries, including China. Interestingly, scientists recently discovered the evidence of a long march by prehistoric humans. According to researchers, prehistoric people travelled nearly 20,000km on foot from Northern Asia to the southernmost point of South America! Researchers from the Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE) and the Asian School of the Environment (ASE) (both part of Nanyang Technological University or NTU) have claimed that it was the longest journey in prehistoric times.

As per a research paper recently published in the Science journal, 48 researchers from 22 institutions in Asia, Europe and the Americas analysed DNA sequences of 1,537 individuals from 139 ethnic groups to identify the migration routes of their ancestors. They found that human migration had begun from Africa at the very beginning before it shifted to Northern Asia. As the journey ended in Tierra del Fuego, an archipelago at South America’s southernmost tip shared by Chile and Argentina; one can find a number of people with various infectious diseases in this region. Tierra del Fuego, known for its dramatic landscape of snowy mountains, glaciers, tundra and wind-sculpted trees, is also considered the final frontier of human migration. Through this analysis, scientists have also shown how humans, divided into different groups, migrated from one place to another and also adapted to new environments on the basis of the genetic diversity that has developed over the centuries.

The primitive men reportedly reached the northwestern tip of South America (the junction of Panama and Colombia) about 14,000 years ago after migrating from Northern Asia. While one group settled in the Amazon basin, members of the remaining groups crossed the desert and the Andes Mountains to reach the Patagonian glaciers. Study author and Associate Professor Kim Hie Lim stressed: “We found that the people who arrived in South America spread across different regions of the continent. We identified at least four distinct ancestral groups: the Andean, Amazon, Chaco and Patagonian populations. These groups became isolated in their own geographic regions, developing unique genetic characteristics over time.”

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Kim further said: “Interestingly, the group that migrated the farthest – to Patagonia – shows the lowest level of genetic diversity.” Therefore, there was a decrease in the diversity of genes related to disease resistance. It may be noted that the Europeans imported various infectious diseases to Latin America during the colonial period. Hence, descendants of the primitive men were easily affected and various diseases often triggered epidemics in Latin America. Kim and her colleagues believe that the genetic analysis, as well as the history of migration, might explain why primitive people were more prone to infectious diseases.

The migration spread members of primitive groups across geographically and climatically diverse areas. Senior Research Fellow Dr Elena S Gusareva has explained that these early groups settled into new ecological niches and their bodies, as well as lifestyles, evolved in response to the unique challenges of each region over hundreds of generations. She stated: “Our findings highlight the extraordinary adaptability of early, diverse indigenous groups who successfully settled in vastly different environments. Using high-resolution whole-genome sequencing technology at SCELSE, we can now uncover the deep history of human migration and the genetic footprints left behind by the early settlers.”

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The genome research has also shown that Asians have more genetic diversity than that of Europeans. NTU Professor Stephan Schuster said: “Our study shows that a greater diversity of human genomes is found in Asian populations, not European ones, as has long been assumed due to sampling bias in large-scale genome sequencing projects.”

Scientists are of the opinion that it is possible to understand not only the travel route, but also how the immune system develops and functions in certain populations through genetic analysis. This sort of research may also be useful in medical science in the future. “This reshapes our understanding of historical population movements and lays a stronger foundation for future research into human evolution. Our new insights underscore the importance of increasing the representation of Asian populations in genetic studies, especially as genomics plays a critical role in personalised medicine, public health and the understanding of human evolution,” stressed Professor Schuster.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das