Australian Aboriginal population genetics at the D1S80 VNTR locus.

The Aboriginal Australian population have continuously inhabited the vast Australian continent for in excess of 50,000 years, making them one of the most distinctive modern human population groups. At the time of European colonisation, it was estimated there were as many as 500 tribes with defined territorial lands and distinct linguistic and cultural traits. Unfortunately, the contribution of genetic data from Aboriginal Australia to studies of modern human global migration has been limited. Likewise, there are limited data from tribal populations from across Australia, and therefore a limited understanding of the genetic differentiation among tribal groups. This research is the first to analyse population data from Aboriginal Australians using the polymorphic minisatellite locus D1S80. Considerable differentiation was observed among the tribal groups that are represented in this Northern Australian dataset. The most genetically distinct tribal groups identified in this study (East Arnhem Land and Tiwi Island) are groups which have been previously noted in anthropological studies as having distinct cultural and/or linguistic characteristics.

Population data from sub-populations of the Northern Territory of Australia for 15 autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) loci.

It is a requirement that forensic DNA profiling evidence be accompanied by an estimation of its weight, in order that the court can assign an appropriate probative value to the evidence during legal proceedings. There are various models by which this estimation can be made, but each relies on approximations of the allele frequencies in the relevant population. It is also important to assess relevant population genetic features of the available data. This report provides allele frequencies and estimates of common population genetic parameters for the major sub-populations of the Northern Territory of Australia genotyped at 15 autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) loci.