Talk:Indigenous Australians/Archive 9

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
I think this article's title should be changed. The most widely accepted and respectful descriptor for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples is "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples". Not all, but many Aboriginal peoples object to the descriptor "indigenous", everyone is indigenous to somewhere, it's too generic, it's like we are saying Aboriginal peoples are not diverse (more than 250 different language groups) and do not have their own individual identities. According to the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies "Today, the term ‘Indigenous Australian’ is used to encompass both Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people. However many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people do not like to be referred to as ‘Indigenous’ as the term is considered too generic." https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/articles/indigenous-australians-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-people I mean Pauline Hanson's callous remarks a few years ago exemplify the issue, when she claimed to be indigenous: "I'm indigenous as far as I'm concerned. I was born here. This is my country as much as anyone else." - Pauline Hanson. She couldn't and wouldn't try that nonsense on if the claim was Aboriginal rather than indigenous.

So what do other editors think? Bacondrum (talk) 23:06, 25 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Firstly, that we should ignore Pauline Hanson in deciding what to name our articles. Secondly though, you probably have a point. The name of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies is probably an excellent guide. HiLo48 (talk) 23:25, 25 October 2020 (UTC)


 * For a more detailed outline of the terminology, see my draft here, and the page it links to. I would still like to see this work finished and put up as a reference point for all editors, once the page has been completed and approved by the Australian project. As far as the title of this article goes, I think that at this stage the shorter one is easier for readers to find, and the lead does include several other terms (which should be in bold). Although there are some objections, the term does not seem to be widely viewed as offensive, and it depends on how it is used, I think. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 07:42, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
 * This is a really interesting discussion, I will follow with interest. The long version "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples" seems like a mouthful and there is no "approved" abbreviation, right? Indigenous Australians makes it perhaps more comparable with "indigenous peoples" elsewhere in the world. But let's see how it pans out and what various subject matter experts recommend. Meanwhile, in some Wikipedia articles I still see the term "Aborigines" being used, which is something we should correct when we come across it. (I came across this terminology issue while working on Climate change in Australia; please help improve that article, too, if anyone has time). EMsmile (talk) 13:35, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi guys, thanks for your replies. I've allways been under the impression (mostly anecdotally, from Koori friends) that "Aboriginal" or "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples" is the preferred descriptor in broad terms - I've heard plenty of objections to "indigenous", and "Aborigines" is seen as outright offensive. In terms of verifiable claims rather than personal anecdotes; all the Traditional Owner (TO) organizations and peak bodies I've looked at (the ones that make any mention of preferred descriptors) use "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples". I don't think unwieldiness or our own opinions should come into play. I think that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples TO groups, Aboriginal associations etc. should be the lead we follow. I've certainly noted plenty of objections to "Indigenous" from organisations and anecdotally. As the lead of this article notes "The term Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples or the person's specific cultural group (their mob), is often preferred, though the terms First Nations of Australia, First Peoples of Australia and First Australians are also increasingly common". regardless, I think Aboriginal people and organisations should be treated as the gold standard for reliable sources in articles about Aboriginal people - definitely not those of colonial/European decent - we have a long and bloody history, of violence and lies used to justify ourselves - the only truly reliable sources on this subject are Aboriginal, IMO. Bacondrum 23:37, 2 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi . I'm not going to be around much this week, so this is just a quick note here. I would really like this discussion to happen on the talk page of the background work I did on the draft guide, linked to above (WikiProject Australia/Draft style guide1), from which I started creating what could perhaps be a Indigenous naming conventions page. I think I might have recently happened upon a precedent and a home for this page - along the lines of these two that I found: we have one for Football and Roads.
 * Being Wikipedia, we have to look at published sources, rather than rely on anecdotal evidence, as you know - which is what I did back in 2019, and while there is no doubt more to be found, we don't need to reinvent the wheel but can build on this. The work put into the various style guides created by other organisations, represented on the first page, was based on input from Aboriginal people, and AIATSIS is our "gold standard" with regard to languages... I was planning to put this proposal up on the Aus notice board (the Naming conventions idea) and try to get a discussion going when I get back and have more time to participate. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 01:24, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Hey great Idea, I'll have a look tomorrow. I think a well considered and thorough style guide is the go for sure. I also agree that AIATSIS is a great source and indeed it is gold standard, but I'd hate for this conversation to take place without Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander peoples. I think the principal of "Nothing about us without us" needs to be applied. I think it is of paramount importance that Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander peoples are involved in creating the standards for how they are described and discussed on Wikipedia.  Bacondrum 03:20, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

It looks as if Bacondrum has departed Wikipedian shores, but F anyone else's I, I have revived the discussion on the talk page of my background document for the style guide. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 07:15, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Traditional Aboriginal Warfare
Why no content on Traditional Aboriginal Warfare? This is quite an interesting and important topic. —DIV (1.145.43.213 (talk) 14:50, 5 September 2021 (UTC))

Governor "Macquarrie" and the "Walpuri"
I'm flagging that I plan to delete the 2nd sentence of the 3rd para of British Colonisation unless someone can give a good reason why it should be retained.

″In 1819, Governor Macquarrie declared total warfare against the Walpuri people of Western New South Wales, waging a war of extermination against them″

This line has a number of problems: the name of the Governor is incorrect (it should be "Macquarie"); I can't find evidence of a group called the "Walpuri" in Western New South Wales; Governor Macquarie had no knowledge of "western New South Wales"—in his time NSW was a colony that extended west to beyond Central Australia and even if the current state boundaries are meant, Macquarie had never ventured far west of the Blue Mountains.

As well, I have scoured the book and can't find this quote (if it is a quote).

Dougg (talk) 05:33, 27 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Without arguing with your general point, the Aboriginal group being referred to may be the Warlpiri people. (Remember, these people had no written language, so spelling is arbitrary.) Warlpiri country, however, is in the central parts of the Northern Territory, so your point about the unlikelihood of Macquarie having anything to do with them makes sense. Your argument is weakened by the petty point about spelling "Macquarie". You could have just fixed that. HiLo48 (talk) 05:43, 27 April 2018 (UTC)


 * The Warlpiri have a very well established orthography (writing system) that they have been using since the 70s (and note that English had no writing system until the 9th century yet we don't say spelling is arbitrary). But I agree, when I saw "Walpuri" my first suspicion was that it was supposed to be "Warlpiri". However, although I haven't been able to find evidence of this, it might be that "Walpuri" is a term that was used in Macquarie's time to refer to some relevant group, eg the Wiradjuri, in which case it would all make sense. Re "Macquarrie", I think that's a bit harsh of you. I just thought I'd ask first then either delete or fix all in one go. Plus my suspicion is that someone got the information from hearing Stan Grant jr. give a talk about his book (rather than reading it in the book), hence the odd spellings. Dougg (talk) 00:01, 28 April 2018 (UTC)


 * HiLo48, I disagree with your judgement that identification of a typographic error in conjunction with raising a broader issue somehow weakens the case made in relation to the latter point. In the present situation I actually think it somewhat strengthens the case.  Furthermore, your recommendation to fix the spelling raises two problems:  firstly, time is spent making superficial changes to (potentially) false content;  secondly, after accumulating several superficial changes the (potentially) false content might start to seem credible (e.g. ″In 1819, Governor Macquarie declared total warfare against the Warlpiri people of the far west, waging a war of extermination against them″).  Not good.  —DIV (1.145.43.213 (talk) 15:01, 5 September 2021 (UTC))

Overquotation and unattributed quotes
In the section "Frontier Wars and Genocide" there are two major problems:
 * 1) There are too many or too lengthy quotes. Using attributed quotes is of course justified in many cases, but generally we should use summarisation and paraphrasing as the preferred method.One paragraph in the section I tagged with cn – beginning with "Unlike the forcible removal of Indigenous children ..." – seems to be paraphrasing one or many sources, but it is not clear to me what those sources are.
 * 2) Many quotes lack inline attribution. For example there is one quote that says "...Extermination seems to be the only remedy." According to the inline citation that is something from Colonial Times, but there is no indication of who said that. I would also note that many sources in this section are very, very old.

I happened to find this page by change through https://copypatrol.toolforge.org/en/, and I'm not the best person to fix these issues as it would pose difficult for me to assess how much content is due. Politrukki (talk) 13:47, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi Politrukki. Happy New Year.

Thanks for giving me the heads up. So, to begin...

First, a little background. As you may be aware from the 1990's in Australia the far right, starting with John Howard and then working their way down, began a nationwide attempt to reposition Australian history in their own image. Politicians, shock jocks, and ideologically motivated 'academics' like Keith Windschuttle deliberately distorted and falsified interpretations of the past. In terms of the 'debate' about the various genocides perpetrated against Aboriginal Peoples, this manifested as outright denial. After the inquiry into the stolen generations which specifically determined that genocide had been committed, Howard famously denied it and the right has been denying it ever since.

One of the excuses that Australia uses to justify the ongoing denial is that the left- liberal, tree hugging hippies and the like- are seeking to impose on previous generations 20/21st century liberal values or to distort history through misinterpretation. The pot calling the kettle black, so to speak.

The fact is that at the time, those people who had boots on the ground, who were living in that frontier society, had much the same values as today, all informed by the Judeo Christian ethic and British law. Those people spoke and wrote and thought in the same framework of Christianity, humanity, liberalism and humanism. Simply allowing those voices to be heard after 100 or 150 or 200 years has the pleasing effect of ridiculing the the Holocaust deniers, which I personally think a noble endeavour. For that reason it is not sufficient to quote one or two voices but by quoting many voices over the course of a century, all singing from the same hyymn book, you establish a)that extermination and genocide occurred, and b) that everyone in that society knew what was going on, whether they wholeheartedly approved, were vehemently opposed or completely ambivalent. No one doubted it. Those contempoaray historical voices are fundamental to the readers' understanding of the history of colonisation and its effects on Indigenous Australians but, because most Wiki users simply will not follow the breadcrumbs and go and read that primary texts, I believe it both necessary and beneficial to quote said sources at some length.

The same need for clarity and understanding also informed my choice to quote at length the Genocide Convention and the findings of the HREOC's inquiry into the stolen generations. Those quotes, I beleive, are the bare minumum necessary to establish the existence of genocide in law- the subject of that particular sub heading. In short, while brevity is great...conclusive proofs are better.

Regarding the "Unlike the forcible removal of Indigenous children...", that refers to the previously quoted text from the HREOC's inquiry. That inquiry is important in that it established the the process of wholesale forcible removal of Indigenous kids in Australia was genocidal,not simply because forcibly removing Aboriginal children from their families, communities and cultures might be interpreted as genocide, but because the stated objective of that policy was genocide. In law intent is fundamental to establishing the existence of genocide.

That is also why it is worth quoting at length contemporary colonial voices- government, politicians, squatters, bureaucrats, newspaper editors, letters to the editor- all advocating for extirpation,annihilation and the extermination of Aboriginal Peoples. Those voices are a prerequisite for establishing that it was genocide, because all those voices establish society wide intent. Intent is the key to any meaniningful discussion of genocide. There is, and can be,no doubt whatsoever that Aboriginal Peoples were systematically wiped out. Intent then becomes the only legal basis upon which denial of genocide can be valid. Remove that obfuscation and there is no doubt whatsoever, at which point the article gains a bit of clarity rather than just being a few lines that say nothing. It is, after, all a topic that deserves more than mention in passing. Whole Peoples were exterminated. Even Hitler didn't manage to actually wipe out anyone, despite his best efforts. Australians did. Australians systematically exterminated whole Peoples, intentionally.

Finally, the sources. Yes, they are old. That is the point. They are not modern 21st century opinions. Many of those quotes are taken from various colonial newspapers, etc. Back then newspapers were very different than they are today. Often they were just a few pages. The distinctions between reporting, an editorial, a letter to the editor and an advertisement were not always clear. A case in point is the Mortimer brothers of Manumbar Station north west of Brisbane who wrote to their local paper vilifying the Native Mounted Police for carrying out a massacre of Aboriginal people on their property. The paper published the letter as an advertisement. Back then there were also no bi lines. Journalists didn't get credit for what they wrote. That didn't come until the 20th century. Mostly these reports and opinions were just published without quoting a source directly or simply as 'our correpondent'. Letters to the editor were often published anonymously or under pseudonyms. The fact that these sources were not named does not in any way negate the genocidal sentiment that was being publicly expressed and again, this society wide, century long, public expression of the desirablility and inevitablility of extermination of Aboriginal Peoples establishes intent and intent establishes genocide in law. If the article was written without those quotes and their focus on fore knowledge and intent- as it previously was- it would essentially be saying nothing, which is pretty much what Australians are comfortable with.

Hope that clarifies your queries.

Cheers. RickPass (talk) 05:38, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Long lists of quotes are not what makes good encyclopedic entries. They are also hives of original research as their compilation is subjective. I would suggest the section should be changed to a summary of secondary sources. I suspect most could be deleted and replaced with a secondary source stating the intended genocide.
 * Briefly do you feel Wikipedia's typical practice is wrong or that this topic is unique? Dushan Jugum (talk) 07:54, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I was a bit bold and moved the quotes to a note. I feel having them in the main text is way out of line with Wikipedia best practice. Having them at all may be a violation of original research, however I can see their value. Dushan Jugum (talk) 01:10, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 August 2019 and 6 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Austin Levant.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:26, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 8 September 2020 and 16 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Km.moroz.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:56, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

1980’s WA connection with aboriginal culture and families
I became blood brothers with my classmate in a ritual conducted by elders.

I was always told by them that THEY belong to the land, culture and heritage… NOT the white man version where the land belongs to the aboriginal.

Who tracks true aboriginal culture & heritage (without other influences) ??? Should land rights etc be voided for the true historic cultural connectivity with the place in question, 60,000 years has to count for something on THEIR terms… no ours!!! 120.16.101.215 (talk) 18:45, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Disputed trifurcation mention
Disputed text: Phylogenetic data suggests that an early initial eastern lineage (ENA) trifurcated somewhere in South Asia, and gave rise to Australasians (Oceanians), the indigenous South Asians/Andamanese, and the East/Southeast Asian lineage including the ancestors of Native Americans

A possible mini edit might be: Phylogenetic data based on the single dispersal Out of Africa theory suggests that an early initial eastern lineage (ENA) trifurcated and gave rise to Australasians (Oceanians), the Andamanese, and the East/Southeast Asian lineage including the ancestors of Native Americans

Ideally the multiple dispersals out of africa theory could be mentioned as well.

This sentence seems to be scattered across many Wikipedia pages, added around August/September 2022. They mostly say quite similar statements "Phylogenetic data ... East Eurasians... trifurcated... South Asia...indigenous South Asians". And they tend to list the Yang paper as a reference.


 * Out of Africa theory
 * Indigenous Australians
 * Southern Dispersal
 * Prehistory of Australia
 * Early human migrations
 * Genetic history of East Asians
 * Indigenous people of New Guinea
 * Genetics and archaeogenetics of South Asia
 * Peopling of China

The issue is that the idea of trifurcation seems to come from a David Reich "single dispersal" out of Africa theory. Where he didn't mention South Asia as the place of trifurcation. And he didn't mention that one of the trifurcated lines was "indigenous South Asians" or AASI (Ancient Ancestral South Indians), what he did mention was Onge. Which is not the same. Refer to Genetics and archaeogenetics of South Asia

Whereas the Yang paper presents both the single and multiple dispersals out of Africa theories. And while viewing Fig 1, could seem as if a type of trifurcation visually is situated in South Asia, but the caption clearly cautions: "The tree diagram shows divergence patterns and is not meant to depict migration routes from the branches or geographic origins of ancestral populations from the internal nodes".

The trifurcation appears to be more likely in South East Asia rather than India.

One of the users that seemed to have added a few of these trifurcation sentences on a few pages: 2A10:1FC0:1:0:0:0:3657:2D30, Bharat99x2, 93.180.134.125 Sausage_Link_of_High_Rule — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aufumy (talk • contribs) 06:24, 6 January 2023 (UTC)


 * By all respect, the Out of Africa theory (single dispersal model of modern humans) is not contested by any reliable source or research (also not by the alleged paper cited by you), but there is disputed about if there was an earlier out of Africa migration (xOoA) which went largely extinct, other than leaving some traces in Australasian populations. The paper by Yang does not only cite Reich, but multiple other papers. Furthermore, the 2016 paper is not bypassing multiple more recent and more detailed papers such as Vallini et al. 2022, etc. Ergo: the concensus is a single dispersal of modern humans, with or without traces of an earlier xOoA migration. There is no dispute about that. A rewording in line with WP:Weight is probably a good idea, yet the tag is unnecessary. Furthermore, mentioning the possibility for an earlier xOoA influence may be useful, see again Vallini et al. 2022:
 * ""Taken together with a lower bound of the final settlement of Sahul at 37 ka (the date of the deepest population splits estimated by Malaspinas et al. 2016), it is reasonable to describe Papuans as either an almost even mixture between East Asians and a lineage basal to West and East Asians occurred sometimes between 45 and 38 ka, or as a sister lineage of East Asians with or without a minor basal OoA or xOoA contribution. We here chose to parsimoniously describe Papuans as a simple sister group of Tianyuan, cautioning that this may be just one out of six equifinal possibilities.""


 * As such, the evidence for the affinity between Australasians and East Asians, both descending from one East-Eurasian meta-population, is strong and not disputed at all. Yours sincerely, Wikiuser1314 (talk) 18:14, 7 January 2023 (UTC).
 * Just removed the unnecessary tags, note that the paragraph talks about the findings of Yang (which is an review article and also cited other papers). Nothing is disputed within this paragraph cited by the reference. There may be differing models and views, all being now considered as minor or competing to the major model, as such fall into WP:Weight. I would suggest if you have any papers clearly advocating a "multiple migration out of Africa and ancestral to modern human populations", than cite this paper in an own paragraph. Otherwise it would be WP:OR or simply a personal opinion, henceforth see WP:NPOV. Thank you.Wikiuser1314 (talk) 18:46, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Yang (2022) mentions the multiple dispersal model in the historical overview as an abandoned idea, and also explains how the discovery of Denisovan ingression into the Australasian gene pool helped to sort things out. I agree with that the state-of-the-art which WP should reflect is the single dispersal model (with possible traces of xOoA that did not significantly contribute to East Eurasian ancestries).
 * The "trifurcation" model however is still open for debate, as Lipson & Reich (2017) note. They take a agnostic stance, but the exact relations of the AASI ghost population, the Andamanese hunter-gatherers and the ancient Hoabinhians vis-a-vis the East Asian and Australasian lineages are still poorly understood and will probably remain so without further ancient samples. Things are complicated further by deep ancestry contributions to the Tibetan gene pool, which may include ghost populations basal to the other East Eurasian lineages. –Austronesier (talk) 20:25, 7 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Firstly, my point wasn't to suggest to remove the trifurcation text or dispute the possibility of single dispersal. But to point out 1) There is no mention of South Asia as the trifurcation point, neither in David Reichs paper or Yangs paper 2) When trifurcation is mentioned one of the forks is Andamanese/Onge not Ancestral South Indian or AASI. These are not the same lineages.
 * Reading through the Vallini et al. 2022 paper they mention "multiple waves of expansion" which they infer from somewhere out of Africa, but doesn't seem as there is any certainty where the "mutliple waves of expansion" emanated from exactly, just some "population hub". Even the name of the Vallini paper "Genetics and Material Culture Support Repeated Expansions into Paleolithic Eurasia from a Population Hub Out of Africa" seems like they are saying much more than just asserting a "single dispersal" theory. Especially as you mentioned with the 6 equifinal possibilities shown in Figure s7.
 * The Vallini paper also cites the Clarkson C paper which suggests a new minimum age for the arrivals of humans to Australia as 65, 000 years, the subsequent interactions of modern humans with Neanderthals and Denisovans. The Clarkson paper doesn't seem to consider this an extinct migration.
 * Rasmussen 2011 suggested a single-wave model seems not likely because "the Aboriginal Australian would have a European allele (Group 1) as often as the Asian individual would (Group 2)" which is not the case.
 * This Lopez 2015 paper notes almost makes it seem as if single dispersal is completely out of the question.
 * ""The split time for European and East African populations (57–76 kya) was again estimated to be somewhat more recent than that for East Asia and Africa (73–88 kya), and significantly more recent than that between Australo-Melanesians and Africa (87–119 kya) even after accounting for Denisovan introgression into the ancestors of Australo-Melanesians.""


 * Based on the 2022 Vallini paper you mentioned, 2011 Rasumssen, 2015 Lopez papers; are these not reliable sources and research that contest a single dispersal of modern humans? At least nothing seems to be settled.
 * Aufumy — Preceding undated comment added 08:02, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't see the section in Yang's paper that calls the multiple dispersals a "historical overview" or an "abandoned idea".
 * "thus were best explained as originating from an earlier dispersal of modern humans out of Africa [56]. Though an earlier dispersal may be partially represented in the genomes of Australasians, the main pattern observed in their genomes indicates a shared evolutionary history with populations widespread today in much of the eastern regions of Asia."


 * One of my main points was if mentioning the single-dispersal "trifurcation" idea it should relate to the Andamanese/Onge and not the indigenous South Asians or AASI. Even the wikipedia pages Onge and Genetics and archaeogenetics of South Asia seem to consider the two as distant cousins rather than the same population grouping.
 * Second main point, I haven't yet seen any article that mentioned they trifurcated in South Asia. David Reich's article doesn't mention it, and other papers seem to suggest South East Asia rather than South Asia.
 * Aufumy — Preceding undated comment added 08:02, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * At first, please comment below and not in between the comments of other users, as you did in my reply. Secondly, the various "multiple out of Africa hypotheses", just like the "multiregional origin model outside of Africa", inferring distinct migration/ancestries for modern Eurasian populations, are considered fringe and not supported by any such papers. The inferred diverging dates are better to be explained by admixture and or drift. The papers do not speak about multiple out of Africa migrations.
 * Thirdly, and more relevant, the trifurication model is not necessarily correct, and likely to simplistic, as Vallini et al. 2022 shows there were multiple East-Eurasian lineages, not only three. Yet, the paragraph mentions the findings of Yang 2022, as such the tag is unnecessary. However removing or correcting wrong or misleading parts are the way to go (such as the mention of South Asia etc.) Lipson & Reich (2017) for example remain neutral, but also mention other possibilities, such as admixture either in Onge or in Aboriginal Australians. But again, as Yang 2022 specifically talks about the trifurication, we should go with that, other there is any source which clearly contradicts or rejects that. This must follow WP:Weight, such as: "Yang 2022 concludes this..." however "xxxx 20xx caution... and suggest that..." etc. A possible solution: "these populations diverged from a common early East-Eurasian meta-population". Lastly, would you please provide the papers which explicitly speak from a "trifurication in Southeast Asia". Yours sincerely Wikiuser1314 (talk) 13:25, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Apologies about the comment structure. I got confused with the quotation indentation and thought there were different threads so to speak. I realize my mistake now.
 * I really don't place high priority on whether multiple dispersals idea is included or not, but will expand on why I believe it is still in debate today, further on. Just for conversation sake.
 * My main points are:
 * 1) South Asian is not synonymous with South Indian as one of the trifurcated forks.
 * 2) South Asia as the point of trifurcation, I can't find mention of it in papers I looked at.
 * South Asian vs South Indian
 * There might be an attempt to expand the grouping of South Indians to South Asians, thereby encompassing North Indians in the initial dispersal of East Eurasian lineage. This would be quite clearly incorrect I believe?
 * When using "trifurcation" it may denote a close genetic linkage in a short span of time. Thus North Indians don't fit within this grouping of one of the trifurcated forks. Therefore the use of "South Asians" as one of the forks is in my opinion, quite misleading. Ancient South Indians or AASI or Andamanese Onge more specifically, sure.
 * Reich uses the more specific terminology of one of the forks as "Onge" or "Andamanese Onge". Whereas Yang expands the grouping to "Ancient Ancestral South Indian (AASI) lineage". Some papers suggest Andamanese Onge may not be a perfect fit for AASI, but maybe one of the closest. Yang never referred to AASI as "indigenous South Asians", as Genetics and archaeogenetics of South Asia tries to claim. Most papers seem careful to not use the phrase "Indigenous South Asians" at all.
 * From Onge
 * "According to Chaubey and Endicott (2013), overall, the Andamanese are more closely related to Southeast Asians and East Asians than they are to present-day South Asians.[30] according to Yelmen et al. 2019, certain South Indian tribal groups are a better proxy for Ancient Ancestral South Asian (AASI) ancestry than the Andamanese Onge are.[31]"


 * South Asia as the trifurcation point
 * While Yang mentions AASI, she never uses the phrasing "trifurcation" and also cautions in Figure 1 about not to infer "migration routes from the branches or geographic origins of ancestral populations". Are you referring to a different Yang 2022 paper? I couldn't find her mention of trifurcation
 * While I found papers that mention Southeast Asia as where the Onge might have migrated from to South Asia, I wasn't proposing the wholesale replacement of "South Asia" with "Southeast Asia". I just wanted to point out that "South Asia" is not a foregone conclusion. I was thinking that the mention of South Asia should be removed, or maybe changed to "Asia". I'm not sure there is a clear consensus whether South Asia or Southeast Asia or elsewhere.
 * Southeast Asia as the trifurcation point
 * Marrero 2016
 * "Founder ages of M lineages in India are significantly younger than those in East Asia, Southeast Asia and Near Oceania."


 * "The existence of a northern route, previously proposed for the mtDNA macrohaplogroup N, is confirmed here for the macrohaplogroup M. Both mtDNA macrolineages seem to have differentiated in South East Asia from ancestral L3 lineages."


 * Lopez 2015
 * "Some of this evidence is in light of autosomal DNA studies that have indicated Southeast Asia was settled by multiple waves of peoples, the first most related ancestrally to modern day groups such as the Onge and the second more closely related ancestrally to modern day East Asians."


 * From Andamanese people
 * "Bulbeck (2013) shows the Andamanese maternal mtDNA is entirely mitochondrial Haplogroup M."


 * Haplogroup M (mtDNA) refers to possible place of origin as either South Asia, Southwest Asia, Southeast Asia, or East Africa
 * Hallast 2020 point to Southeast Asia using y chromosome
 * "In a simple model of gradual human expansion from Africa to Asia and Oceania without subsequent continental-scale reshaping, we would expect the initial divergences in the Y-chromosomal phylogeny to have occurred in geographical locations close to Africa, and the present-day Y-chromosomal phylogeography to reflect this history by showing the presence of the early-diverging lineages within C, D and FT now being located geographically in Central/West Asia (Fig. 3a), with lower lineage diversity further east. In stark contrast, the observed distributions of these lineages all lie further to the east, suggesting that a simple model of this kind cannot explain the observed present-day data"


 * Current debate on multiple dispersals
 * Connell 2018 is a strong proponent for the single dispersal idea, and believes there just isn't enough evidence to prove multiple dispersals yet, he doesn't state there is anything that disproves multiple dispersals. He mentions the limits of radiocarbon analysis to 50ka and suggests luminescence analysis is needed to prove > 50ka. Interestingly he does point out the debate happening in the past decade:
 * "Over the past decade or so, some analysts have suggested a more complex series of events beginning well before 50–55 ka"


 * "We conclude that the case for an AMH expansion across the SCS arc >50 ka remains weak. More compelling evidence from the human fossil record, identification of genetic signals of a >50-ka Sahul population, or support from a well-dated archaeological site in Sahul would change this picture."


 * From the Connell 2018 paper, it would show the "multiple dispersals" theory is not considered completely out of the picture. It may not be a favoured hypothesis for sure, but there is ongoing debate in the last decade.
 * Connell 2018 seems to dismiss the point of an earlier split time of Austro-Melanesians due to the timing of Neanderthal admixture, but Lopez 2015 suggests that there could be different sources of Neanderthal DNA
 * "Opponents of an early migration into Australia and Oceania assert that if an early migration had taken place before AMH spread into Eurasia, then we would not expect to see evidence of Neanderthal admixture in these genomes given our current understanding of the Neanderthal geographic range.118,153 A conciliatory explanation for the fact that Australo-Melanesians have similar levels of Neanderthal admixture as other non-African populations has been proposed by Weaver,155 who has speculated that the Neanderthal genetic component present in Australasians may be the result of introgression from another group that was in direct contact with Neanderthals.109,125,156,157"


 * I would say the Vallini 2022 paper also doesn't exclude "multiple disperals" theory. The title even mentions "Repeated Expansions" but from a "Population Hub" that seems to be undetermined at this point. So maybe the "multiple dispersals" theory is not necessarily "out of africa" but rather "out of population hub".
 * Vallini's paper in Figure s7 seems to suggest that the Papuan lineage could be a earlier split (D,E sections) before the split between East and West Eurasian lineages
 * Vallini's paper cites a reference to Clarkson C paper which suggests a new minimum age for the arrivals of humans to Australia as 65, 000 years.
 * the Yang 2022 paper presents both single and multiple dispersal hypothesis. She does not refer to multiple dispersals as a historical overview or an abandoned idea. But favours the majority of AMH to be due to single dispersals with only a small percentage in Papuans perhaps due to an earlier dispersal
 * "they examined haplotypes in Papuans associated with a deeper divergence and found that 2% of the haplotypes in Papuan genomes could not be explained by Denisovan admixture or shared origins with mainland Eurasians, and thus were best explained as originating from an earlier dispersal of modern humans out of Africa [56]."

Aufumy (talk) 19:25, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Rasmussen 2011 suggested a single-wave model seems not likely because "the Aboriginal Australian would have a European allele (Group 1) as often as the Asian individual would (Group 2)" which is not the case.
 * Lopez 2015
 * "The split time for European and East African populations (57–76 kya) was again estimated to be somewhat more recent than that for East Asia and Africa (73–88 kya), and significantly more recent than that between Australo-Melanesians and Africa (87–119 kya) even after accounting for Denisovan introgression into the ancestors of Australo-Melanesians."
 * Np, but I do not see any support for a multiple route hypothesis in either of these papers. Many of them are rather old, although not bad, yet it is clear in which direction the concensus goes. Take this summary paper for example: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366580805_The_future_of_the_Eurasian_past_highlighting_plotholes_and_pillars_of_human_population_movements_in_the_Late_Pleistocene. Wikiuser1314 (talk) 23:25, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I completely agree that the consensus is mostly single dispersal, but I just wanted to point out there are still proponents for the multiple dispersal hypothesis this decade. It doesn't seem as if the single dispersal proponents are able to completely dismiss a multiple dispersal hypothesis. There just needs to be more data collected either way.
 * But back to the main points. Would you have any objections to change the mention of "Indigenous South Asians" to Ancient Ancestral South Indians / AASI or Anadamanese Onge in context of the trifurcation sentence? As well as to remove "South Asia" as the point where trifurcation happened?
 * Since this sentence is mentioned on so many pages, with slight variations, I just wanted to check on these 2 points. Aufumy (talk) 00:45, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
 * No objections from my side. Wikiuser1314 (talk) 14:36, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Ok! Completed changes to above pages as well as Tianyuan man where the trifurcation mention was added 2 Oct 2022 by 94.131.108.213 and Andamanese people
 * 1) Removed trifurcation point as South Asia. Though left mention of "Eastern South Asia" on Out of Africa theory and Prehistory of Australia. Not sure that its clear that "Eastern South Asia" might encompass South East Asia, but left it as is.
 * 2) Changed "indigenous south asian" to "Ancient Ancestral South Indian" Aufumy (talk) 00:21, 16 January 2023 (UTC)