Papua New Guinean people
Children dressed up for sing-sing in Yengisa, Papua New Guinea.
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| Regions with significant populations | |
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 Papua New Guinea Indonesia: 2,693,630 (2010 census)(West Papua (region) and Maluku Islands)  East Timor
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| Languages | |
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Papuan languages Trans–New Guinea languages Indonesian language |
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| Religion | |
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Christianity (Protestantism, Roman Catholicism) Sunni Islam Animism |
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| Related ethnic groups | |
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Indigenous Australians Melanesians Moluccans |
Papuan people are the various indigenous peoples of New Guinea and neighbouring islands, speakers of the Papuan languages. They are often distinguished ethnically and linguistically from Austronesians, speakers of a language family introduced into New Guinea about three thousand years ago.
In a 2005 study of ASPM gene variants, Mekel-Bobrov et al. found that the Papuan people have among the highest rate of the newly evolved ASPM haplogroup D, at 59.4% occurrence of the approximately 6,000-year-old allele. While it is not yet known exactly what selective advantage is provided by this gene variant, the haplogroup D allele is thought to be positively selected in populations and to confer some substantial advantage that has caused its frequency to rapidly increase.
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Wikipedia