🇮🇩 Sulawesi’s lost lineage

A 7,300–7,200-year-old forager from Leang Panninge (South Sulawesi) shares most genetic drift with Papuans and Aboriginal Australians, yet forms a distinct branch that split around the same time those groups diverged (~37,000 years ago).

She carries ~2.2% Denisovan ancestry (Papuans ≈ 2.9%) and shows an added deep Asian–related component, pointing to ancient mixing in Wallacea before Austronesian farmers arrived — a ancestry profile that is largely absent in the region today.

Takeaway: Early Holocene Sulawesi held a unique Wallacean lineage with both Near Oceanian and deep Asian ties that later got replaced or diluted.

Source: Carlhoff et al., 2021. Genome of a middle Holocene hunter-gatherer from Wallacea.