DNA EVIDENCE SAYS FIRST AMERICANS CAME FROM ASIA
Natives Americans are believed to have descended from Asian people who arrived in North America via the Bering Strait. The DNA of ancient American bog people is closer to the Japanese than Americans.
Glenn Hodges wrote in National Geographic: “In recent years geneticists have compared the DNA of modern Native Americans with that of other populations around the world and concluded that the ancestors of Native Americans were Asians who separated from other Asian populations and remained isolated for about 10,000 years, based on mutation rates in human DNA. During that time they developed unique genetic signatures that only Native Americans currently possess. [Source: Glenn Hodges, National Geographic, January 2015 /~]
“These genetic markers have been found not only in the DNA recovered from Naia’s skeleton” from Hoyo Negro, Mexico “ but also in the remains of a child buried some 12,600 years ago in western Montana, on a piece of land now called the Anzick site.” In 2014 “Danish geneticist Eske Willerslev reported that an analysis of the child’s remains had yielded, for the first time, a full Paleo-American genome. “Now we’ve got two specimens, Anzick and Hoyo Negro, both from a common ancestor who came from Asia,” Waters says. “And like Hoyo Negro, the Anzick genome unquestionably shows that Paleo-Americans are genetically related to native peoples.” Though some critics point out that two individuals are too small a sample to draw definitive conclusions, there’s strong consensus on the Asian ancestry of the first Americans.” /~\
Chinese researchers Feng Zhang, Bing Su, Ya-ping Zhang and Li Jin wrote in an article published by the Royal Society: “America is the last continent settled by modern humans. There are three linguistically identified groups of population: Amerind, Eskimo-Aleut and Na-Dene. mtDNA haplogroups of Native America include four Asian haplogroups (A, B, C and D) and one European haplogroup (X; Mulligan et al. 2004). Wallace et al. (1985) studied Amerind populations and showed that the sequence diversity of haplogroup B is much lower than those of haplogroups A, C and D. Furthermore, haplogroup B is absent in Siberia, while A, C and D are prevalent. These two observations imply that the Amerind linguistic group might have been derived from two migrations. [Source: “Genetic studies of human diversity in East Asia” by 1) Feng Zhang, Institute of Genetics, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, 2) Bing Su, Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, 3) Ya-ping Zhang, Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Bio-resource, Yunnan University and 4) Li Jin, Institute of Genetics, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University. Author for correspondence (ljin007@gmail.com), 2007 The Royal Society ***]
Lell et al. (2002) analysed 12 Y-SNPs in 549 individuals from Siberia and the Americas. Three major Y lineages of Native American populations have been found: M3 (66 percent), M45 (25 percent) and M130 (5 percent). M3, also known as DYS119 (Underhill et al. 1996), was confined to the Chukoka peninsula in Siberia. M45 was divided into two subgroups; one subgroup (M45a) is found throughout the Americas, and another (M45b) is prevalent in North and Central America. These two sub-haplogroups have different distribution patterns in Siberia (M45a in middle Siberia and M45b in eastern Siberia). The C-M130 haplogroup has a similar distribution to that of M45b in Siberia and in North America. They hypothesized that there were two independent migrations into America from Siberia, which is consistent with the mtDNA evidence (Wallace et al. 1985). M242 is a polymorphism, which was introduced after M74 (arising in Asia) but before M3 (arising in America) in the phylogeny of the human Y chromosome (Underhill et al. 1996, 2000), and can be used to date the entry into the Americas. Based on the diversity of 15 Y-STRs in 69 Eurasian M242-T samples, the time of first entry into the Americas was estimated to be close to 15 000–18 000 years BP (Seielstad et al. 2003).
See Separate Articles: 1) MIGRATION OF EARLY HUMANS TO AMERICA factsanddetails.com ; 2) EARLIEST MODERN HUMANS IN AMERICA factsanddetails.com
Migration Patterns Deduced from Blood Types and North America and Siberian Languages
Bering Strait today
Geneticists believe that early Americans were composed of three separate groups that arrived in America at different times from different places: 1) the Amerind, the dominate group in North and South America, possess only type O blood; 2) the Na-Dene, who live in clusters in Alaska, Canada and part of the U.S. Southwest, have mostly O but a little A blood; and 3) the Alaskan and Canadian Inuit (Eskimo) have A, B, AB and O blood group patterns which parallel other groups found in the rest of the world.
Joseph Stromberg wrote in smithsonian.com: “A pair of linguistics researchers, Mark Sicoli and Gary Holton, recently analyzed languages from North American Na-Dene family (traditionally spoken in Alaska, Canada and parts of the present-day U.S.) and the Asian Yeneseian family (spoken thousands of miles away, in central Siberia), using similarities and differences between the languages to construct a language family tree. As they note in an article published today in PLOS ONE, they found that the two language families are indeed related—and both appear to descend from an ancestral language that can be traced to the Beringia region. Both Siberia and North America, it seems, were settled by the descendants of a community that lived in Beringia for some time. In other words, Sicoli says, “this makes it look like Beringia wasn’t simply a bridge, but actually a homeland—a refuge, where people could build a life.”[Source: Joseph Stromberg, smithsonian.com, March 12, 2014 ^]
“Sicoli began looking into the relationships between languages to model migration in the region several years ago, when he was with Holton at the University of Alaska (Sicoli is now at Georgetown University). The relationship between Yenesian and Na-Dene languages—which would theoretically serve as proof that Native Americans’ ancestors had migrated from Asia—was proposed as far back as 1923, by Italian linguist Alfredo Trombetti, but the first rigorous research to prove the link was only conducted over the past decade or so. ^
“Sicoli and Holton sought to go a step further: They wanted to not only show the two groups were related, but analyze the similarities and differences between languages in the two families to paint a geographic picture of this ancient migration. To do so, they relied upon software programs that conduct phylogenetic analyses. Most often, phylogenetics refers to sorting out the evolutionary relationships between different organisms, using genetic similarities and differences to construct an accurate family tree of species. But because languages, like life, gradually evolve over time, linguists have put the same sort of analysis to work in constructing language trees. ^
“The researchers collected data on two Yeniseian languages, 37 Na-Dene languages and Haida (a language spoken on Canada’s Pacific coast but not believed to be related to Na-Dene, used as a control) from the Alaska Native Language Archive and several other published sources. Then, they used phylogenetic algorithms to create a family tree of the forty languages, determining which were most closely related based on the number of similarities (such as phonemes that serve particular roles in the language’s grammar, for instance). ^
“Their tree confirmed that Yenesian and Na-Dene are related—and that Haida is not—but because these languages were carried by populations of humans that were moving over time, the lengths of branches in the tree also allowed Sicoli and Horton to weigh the odds of two different migration hypotheses. The first, proposed by many linguists, held that the source of both the Yenesian and Na-Dene languages was in Asia, with a subset of its speakers migrating across Beringia and bringing evolved versions of the language to North America. The second held that the source was in Beringia itself, with subsets of its speakers fanning out over both Siberia and North America. ^
“The phylogenetic analysis, based on the degree of similarities between Yenesian and Na-Dene languages and within both groups, strongly supported the latter hypothesis—meaning that residents of communities as far apart as Central Siberia and the Great Plains share common ancestors, who likely lived in Beringia for an extended period of time. “Growing up, I’d look at maps showing migrations to the Americas, and they’d always just show arrows going in one direction: straight across from Asia to North America,” Sicoli says. “What we see now is something more complicated, because some of those arrows go back to Siberia, and it wasn’t a non-stop trip.” ^
“This fits with what we know about the geography of the region at the time. Asia and Alaska were connected by a land bridge because global sea levels were much lower, largely because of how much water was locked up in glaciers that covered much more of the planet than today. But even though these glaciers opened up the corridor between North America and Asia, they also closed the door, because, as mentioned before, Alaska itself was under a thick sheet of ice at that time. Thus, the land bridge was a dead end, potentially explaining why these ancient migrants could have spent about 10,000 years in Beringia. Then, about 17,000 years ago, the glaciers began to recede—and sea levels began to rise—providing two reasons to leave Beringia, either for new territory in Alaska or back toward Siberia.”
24,000-Year-Old Siberian DNA Suggests Native Americans More Closely Linked to Eurasians than East Asians
Beringia in the Ice Age
Meeri Kim wrote in the Washington Post: “The genetic analysis of a 24,000-year-old arm bone from an ancient Siberian boy suggests that Native Americans have a more complicated ancestry than scientists realized, with some of their distant kin looking more Eurasian than East Asian. The new study, published in the journal Nature, represents the oldest genome of a modern human ever fully sequenced. [Source: Meeri Kim, Washington Post, November 20, 2013 ||+||]
“Modern-day Native Americans share from 14 to 38 percent of their DNA with the Siberian hunter-gatherers — who are not closely related to East Asians — with the remainder coming from East Asian ancestors. Most scientists have thought that the first Americans came only from the East Asian populations. “If you read about the origins of Native Americans, it will say East Asians somehow crossed the Bering Sea,” said study author and evolutionary biologist Eske Willerslev at Copenhagen University. “This is definitely not the case — it’s more complex than that.” ||+||
“It isn’t known where or when the meeting of the two peoples happened, but a likely location could be Beringia, the region surrounding the current gap between Alaska and Siberia. Although presently occupied by the Bering Strait and its surrounding waters, the glaciers of roughly 20,000 years ago locked up much of the earth’s water, exposing a land bridge between the two continents. The prehistoric crossroad provided an easy way for people, animals and plants to spread. ||+||
“Originally excavated in the 1950s, the remains of the boy had been tucked away in the bowels of a museum in St. Petersburg. He was about 3 when he died, and he was buried with a variety of “grave goods,” including a swan figurine and an ivory pendant. When Willerslev sequenced the DNA from the boy’s upper arm bone, he thought the results were a mistake: It said the boy belonged to a lineage commonly found among Europeans, but not in East Asians. “We put the study on hold for a year because I thought it was contamination,” Willerslev said. They tried again, this time digging deeper and looking at the Y chromosome. It and the rest of the genome told the same story: The boy had links to present-day western Eurasians and Native Americans, but not East Asians. ||+||
“They also sequenced a more recent Siberian adult whose DNA wasn’t as well preserved, and they got similar results. “They were members of a really cosmopolitan group that probably reflect early modern humans leaving Africa and spreading into central Asia,” said study author Kelly Graf, a Texas A&M anthropologist. Their results support fossil evidence from early Paleo-Indian humans, such as a well-preserved skeleton known as Kennewick man found in Washington state. Dated to about 9,000 years old, he has facial features that don’t look East Asian but rather somewhat Caucasian — a mystery found replicated in other skulls. ||+||
“The fact that the first Americans were already mixed to begin with could answer these controversies, Willerslev said. Any Western Eurasian genetic signatures found in Native Americans today were previously attributed to post-1492 colonial mixing with Europeans. “Maybe it has much deeper roots — from Siberia, not Europeans coming over in their boats,” Graf said.” ||+||
Single Wave Migration Theory Versus Multiple Pulses Theory for the First Americans
There are two theories about the migration process of the first American: 1) it was a single migratory event, the so called single wave theory, or 2) it occurred in multiple pulses, waves or migrations. The evidence gathered so far seems to suggest it was a single event or at least a dominant single event, with some sideshow migrations that didn’t leave much of a DNA impact. Tests on mitochondrial DNA taken from the few examples of ancient American DNA, Joel Achenbach wrote in the Washington Post, “have a genetic marker common today across the Americas, one that scientists say evolved in a prehistoric population that had been isolated for thousands of years in Beringia, the land mass between Alaska and Siberia that formed a bridge between the continents during the Ice Ages. Thus, according to the report, the Native Americans and the Paleoamericans are the same people, descended from the same Beringia population. They just look different because of recent evolution. [Source: Joel Achenbach, Washington Post, May 15, 2014]
“Most scientists have assumed that the first humans to come to the Americas traveled from Eurasia across the Bering land bridge that existed before the oceans rose after the Ice Ages. But there is great debate about whether this represented a single migratory event or multiple pulses of people from different parts of Eurasia and via different routes, including a coastal migration. One maverick theory, based on archeological finds, contends that people came from Europe, following the edge of the ice around the North Atlantic.
“Adding to the mystery is that the Paleoamericans, such as Naia, didn’t look like later Native Americans. Naia had a small, projecting face, with narrow cheekbones, wide-set eyes and a prominent forehead. Native Americans of later millennia tended to have broader, longer, flatter faces, and rounder skulls, said James Chatters, an independent researcher based in Washington state.
“The distinct morphology of the Paleoamericans is most famously found in the “Kennewick Man,” a 9,000-year-old skeleton discovered two decades ago along the Columbia River in Washington state. Facial reconstruction resulted in someone who looked a bit like the actor Patrick Stewart (“Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “X-Men”). Scientists theorized that he could have been related to populations in East Asia that spread along the coast and eventually colonized Polynesia. Under that scenario, more recent Native Americans could be descended from a separate migratory population.”
“Deborah Bolnick, an anthropologist at the University of Texas at Austin, said the new genetic tests support the hypothesis of a single ancestral population for Native Americans. “It’s a lineage that we see across the Americas,” she said, “and a variety of different studies, different lines of evidence over several decades — archaeological studies, genetic studies, morphological studies — all suggest that Native Americans can be traced to a Beringian source population.”
Map of human migrations
DNA Suggest Suggests Americas 'Settled in Three Waves', with the First Wave Predominating
The results of the biggest survey of Native American DNA announced in 2012 concluded that the American World was settled in three major waves with the majority of today's indigenous Americans descending from a single group of migrants that crossed from Asia to Alaska about 15,000 years ago or more. Previous genetic data suggested that America was colonised by a single migrant wave. The findings were published by an international team of researchers in the journal Nature. "For years it has been contentious whether the settlement of the Americas occurred by means of a single or multiple migrations from Siberia," said co-author Prof Andres Ruiz-Linares from University College London (UCL). "But our research settles this debate: Native Americans do not stem from a single migration. Our study also begins to cast light on patterns of human dispersal within the Americas." [Source: BBC, 12 July 2012 |::|]
The BBC reported: “The team analysed data from 52 Native American and 17 Siberian groups, studying more than 300,000 variations in their DNA known as Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms, or SNPs. This allowed them to examine patterns of genetic similarities and differences between the population groups. The second and third migrations have left an impact only in Arctic populations whose languages belong to the Eskimo-Aleut family and in the Canadian Chipewyan who speak a language that belongs to the Na-Dene family. However, even these populations have inherited most of their genome (the DNA sequence contained in the nuclei of cells) from the earliest migration.|::|
“Eskimo-Aleut speakers derive more than 50 percent of their DNA from what the researchers call "First Americans", and the Chipewyan around 90 percent. This reflects the fact that the two later streams of migration from Asia mixed with the populations descended from the first wave. "There are at least three deep lineages in Native American populations," said co-author David Reich, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School. "The Asian lineage leading to First Americans is the most anciently diverged, whereas the Asian lineages that contributed some of the DNA to Eskimo-Aleut speakers and the Na-Dene-speaking Chipewyan from Canada are more closely related to present-day East Asian populations." Evidence from mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), the genetic information in the mitochondria that power cells, supports descent from a single founding group of colonisers, who crossed from Siberia into America across the Bering land bridge. But a three-stage migration has been proposed before, based on a controversial interpretation of language relationships and physical features of the teeth of Native American groups. |::|
“The team also found that once in the Americas, people expanded southward along a route that hugged the coast, with populations splitting off along the way. After their divergence, there was little gene flow among Native American groups, especially in South America. Two glaring exceptions to this simple dispersal were also discovered. First, Central American Chibchan-speakers have ancestry from both North and South America, reflecting a migration back from South America to Central America. Second, the Naukan and coastal Chukchi from north-eastern Siberia carry distinctive "First American" DNA. Thus, Eskimo-Aleut speakers migrated back to Asia, bringing Native American genes. |::|
“The team's analysis was complicated by the influx into the hemisphere of European and African immigrants since 1492 and the 500 years of genetic mixing that followed. To address this, the authors developed methods that allowed them to focus on the sections of peoples' genomes that were of entirely Native American origin.” |::|
Frequency of distribution of the main mtDNA American haplogroups in native Americans
DNA From a 12,600-Year-Old Baby Boy Found in Montana Indicates Asian Ancestry
DNA was recovered from of a baby boy who was buried in Montana 12,600 years ago, providing insights into the ancestry of native peoples of the Americas. Malcolm Ritter of Associated Press wrote: “It’s the oldest genome ever recovered from the New World. Artifacts found with the body show the boy was part of the Clovis culture. The boy’s genome showed his people were direct ancestors of many of today’s native peoples in the Americas, but he was more closely related to those in Central and South America than to those in Canada. [Source: Malcolm Ritter, Associated Press, February 17, 2014 =|=]
“The DNA also indicates the boy’s ancestors came from Asia, supporting the standard idea of ancient migration to the Americas by way of a land bridge that disappeared long ago. The burial site, northeast of Livingston, Mont., is the only one known from the Clovis culture. The boy was between 1 year and 18 months old when he died of an unknown cause. He was buried with 125 artifacts, including spear points and elk antler tools. Some were evidently ritual objects or heirlooms. The artifacts and the skeleton were covered with powdered red ochre, a natural pigment, indicating a burial ceremony. The skeleton was discovered in 1968 next to a rock cliff, but it’s only in recent years that scientists have been able to recover and analyze complete genomes from such ancient samples. =|=
Ker Than wrote in National Geographic: “Comparison studies of the ancient DNA showed that it was similar to the genomes of ancient people living in Siberia and the ancestors of East Asians. The team also discovered a deep genetic affinity between the boy's genetic material and those of 52 Native American populations living in South America and Canada. "The Anzick remains share a common ancestry with almost every modern Native American group that we looked at," Waters said.” [Source: Ker Than, National Geographic, February 12, 2014]
DNA from Girl That Fell in Hole in the Yucatan 12,000 Years Ago
In the May 15, 2014 issue of the journal Science, scientists announced the results of DNA extraction from a teenage girl fell into a deep hole and died in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula 12,000 to 13,000 years ago. The remains of the girl, nicknamed Naia, were found by scuba divers at the bottom of Hoyo Negro, a large dome-shaped underwater cave. Her DNA links her to Asians as wells modern native peoples of the Americas. [Source: Malcolm Ritter, Associated Press, May 15, 2014]
Malcolm Ritter of Associated Press wrote: T”he girl's nearly complete skeleton was discovered by chance in 2007 by expert divers who were mapping water-filled caves north of the city of Tulum, in the eastern part of the Yucatan Peninsula. The divers named the skeleton Naia, after a water nymph of Greek mythology, and joined up with a team of scientists to research the find. The girl was 15 or 16 when she met her fate in a cave, which at that time was dry, researchers said. She may have been looking for water when she tumbled into the chamber some 12,000 or 13,000 years ago, said lead study author James Chatters of Applied Paleoscience, a consulting firm in Bothell, Washington. Her pelvis was broken, suggesting she had fallen a long distance, he said.
Naia was found with fossils of two saber-toothed cats, six bears, three cougars and two ground sloths. The Science article concludes, “The differences in craniofacial form between Native Americans and their Paleoamerican predecessors are best explained as evolutionary changes that postdate the divergence of Beringians from their Siberian ancestors.”“This is truly an extraordinary discovery,” said Yemane Asmerom, a geochemist at the University of New Mexico who co-wrote the report. He compared the cave, to the Awash Valley of Ethiopia — the site of the 1974 discovery of “Lucy,” an early human ancestor. [Source: Joel Achenbach, Washington Post, May 15, 2014]
Native American DNA subrace genetic groups
DNA from 12,000-Year Old Yucatan Girl Supports the Single Wave Theory
Malcolm Ritter of Associated Press wrote: “The analysis of her remains, reported by scientists in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Denmark, addresses a puzzle about the settling of the Americas. Most scientists say the first Americans came from Siberian entered the Americas sometime after 17,000 years ago from that land mass, called Beringia. And genetic evidence indicates that today's native peoples of the Americas are related to these pioneers. But the oldest skeletons from the Americas — including Naia's — have skulls that look much different from those of today's native peoples. To some researchers, that suggests the first Americans came from a different place. [Source: Malcolm Ritter, Associated Press, May 15, 2014]
“Naia provides a crucial link. DNA recovered from a molar contains a distinctive marker found in today's native peoples, especially those in Chile and Argentina. The genetic signature is thought to have arisen among people living in Beringia, researchers said. That suggests that the early Americans and contemporary native populations both came from the same ancestral roots in Beringia — not different places, the researchers concluded. The anatomical differences apparently reflect evolution over time in Beringia or the Americas, they said.
“The finding does not rule out the idea that some ancient settlers came from another place, noted Deborah Bolnick, a study author from the University of Texas at Austin. Dennis O'Rourke, an expert in ancient DNA at the University of Utah who didn't participate in the work, said the finding is the first to show a genetic link to Beringia in an individual who clearly had the anatomical signs of a very early American. He said he considered the notion of multiple migrations from different places to be "quite unlikely."”
Earlier, “other researchers reported that DNA from a baby buried in Montana more than 12,000 years ago showed a close genetic relationship to modern-day native peoples, especially those in Central and South America. An author of that study, Mike Waters of Texas A&M University, said the Mexican finding fits with the one in Montana. There are so few such early skeletons from the Americas, he said, that "every single one of them is important." However, Richard Jantz, a retired professor of forensic anthropology at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, said he still believes early settlers arrived by boat from east Asia before any migration occurred via Beringia. That's based on anatomical evidence, he said. The argument in the new paper "leaves a lot of unanswered questions," he said.”
DNA Shows Links Between Americas and Oceanians and Supports Multiple Pulses Migration
Pallab Ghosh of the BBC News wrote: “Two separate genetic analyses have found evidence for a surprising genetic link between the native populations of the Americas and Oceania. The DNA of some native Amazonians shows significant similarity to indigenous inhabitants of Australia and Melanesia. The two research groups, however, offer contrasting interpretations of how the Americas were first peopled. The studies have been published in the journals Science and Nature. [Source: Pallab Ghosh, BBC News, 22 July 2015 |::|]
“There is agreement that the first people to populate the Americas came though Siberia - along a land bridge connecting it with Europe and Asia. But just where these people came from and when they arrived has been a matter of some debate. By analysing the DNA of modern native Americans and ancient human remains, the group writing in Science concluded that all present-day Native Americans arrived in a single migration no earlier than 23,000 years ago. |::|
“Then, they argue, Native Americans split into two branches around 13,000 years ago: one that is now dispersed across North and South America while the other is restricted to North America. "Our paper shows that the simplest possible model seems by and large to be true, with [that] one notable exception," Prof Rasmus Nielsen from the University of California, Berkley, told BBC News. "[So] the fanciful ideas that somehow the Americas were populated by people coming from Europe and all kinds of other places are wrong." |::|
“The analysis also rules out a theory, favoured by some, of a staggered migration from Siberia: the first more than 30,000 years ago which was stemmed for 15,000 years because of ice blocking the route, and then a second wave when the route was clear. But, in agreement with the study in Nature, Prof Nielsen's team does report traces of "Australo-Melanesian" ancestry in certain populations, including those of the Aleutian islands (off Alaska) and the Surui people of the Brazilian Amazon. |::|
Prof David Reich, from Harvard Medical School, led the separate study in Nature. He told the BBC that "both studies show that there have been multiple pulses of migration into the Americas". According to Prof Reich, the discovery of Oceanian ancestry among certain Native American groups indicates that the Americas were peopled by a more diverse set of populations than previously accepted. "The simplest possible model never predicted an affinity between Amazonians today and Australasians," he said. "This suggests that there is an ancestral population that crossed into the Americas that is different from the population that gave rise to the great majority of Americans. And that was a great surprise," he said. |Prof Reich believes that the most plausible explanation is that there was a separate migration from Australasia, possibly around 15,000 years ago. This group, he speculates, was probably more widely dispersed across North America but was eventually pushed out by other native American groups. Prof Nielsen, however, has a different interpretation. He believes that the traces of Australasian DNA stem from a later migration, around 8,000 years ago, which progressed around the Pacific coast.” |::|
Pacific Basin Human Geography migrations
DNA Reveals New Group of Native Americans: the Beringians
Genetic analysis of bones from a baby girl who died at the end of the last ice age, around 11,500 years ago, in Alaska shows she belonged to a previously unknown ancient group of Native Americans — dubbed the Beringians. Ian Sample wrote in The Guardian: “The child, a mere six weeks old when she died, was found in a burial pit next to the remains of a stillborn baby, perhaps a first cousin, during excavations of an 11,500-year-old residential camp in Tanana River Valley in Central Alaska. The remains were discovered in 2013, but a full genetic analysis has not been possible until now. Researchers tried to recover ancient DNA from both of the infants but succeeded only in the case of the larger individual. They had expected her genetic material to resemble modern northern or southern lineages of Native Americans, but found instead that she had a distinct genetic makeup that made her a member of a separate population. [Source: Ian Sample, The Guardian, January 3, 2018 |=|]
“The newly-discovered group, named “ancient Beringians”, appears to have split off from the founding population of Native Americans about 20,000 years ago. While the ancestors of other Native Americans pushed south into the continent as the ice caps thawed, the ancient Beringians remained in the north until they eventually died out. “This is a new population of Native Americans,” said Eske Willerslev, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Copenhagen, whose team recovered the girl’s DNA from a dense part of her skull known as the petrous bone. Details of the work are published in Nature.
“Working with scientists at the University of Alaska and elsewhere, Willerslev compared the genetic makeup of the baby, named Xach’itee’aanenh t’eede gaay or “sunrise child-girl” by the local community, with genomes from other ancient and modern people. They found that nearly half of the girl’s DNA came from the ancient north Eurasians who lived in what is now Siberia. The rest of her genetic makeup was a roughly even mix of DNA now carried by the northern and southern Native Americans.” |=|
Beringians and the Single Wave Theory
Ian Sample wrote in The Guardian: “Using evolutionary models, the researchers showed that the ancestors of the first Native Americans started to emerge as a distinct population about 35,000 years ago, probably in north-east Asia. About 25,000 years ago, this group mixed and bred with ancient north Eurasians in the region, the descendants of whom went on to become the first Native Americans to settle the New World. [Source: Ian Sample, The Guardian, January 3, 2018 |=|]
“During the last ice age, so much water was locked up in the ice caps that a land bridge reached from Asia to North America across what is now the Bering Strait. Willerslev believes the ancestors of Native Americans travelled to the continent in a single wave of migration more than 20,000 years ago. Those who settled in the north became the isolated ancient Beringians, he said, while those who moved south, around or through the ice sheets, split into the north and south Native Americans about 15,700 years ago. |=|
“But there is another possibility. Ben Potter, an archaeologist on the team from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, suspects that the Beringians split from the ancestors of other Native Americans in Asia before both groups made their way across the land bridge to North America in separate migrations. “The support for this scenario is pretty strong,” he said. “We have no evidence of people in the Beringia region 20,000 years ago.” |=|
“The families who lived at the ancient camp may have spent months there, Potter said. Excavations at the site, known as Upward Sun River, have revealed at least three tent structures that would have provided shelter. The two babies were found in a burial pit beneath a hearth where families cooked salmon caught in the local river. The cremated remains of a third child, who died at the age of three, were found on top of the hearth at the abandoned camp. |=|
“Connie Mulligan, an anthropologist at the University of Florida, said the findings pointed to a single migration of people from Asia to the New World, but said other questions remained. “How did people move so quickly to the southernmost point of South America and settle two continents that span a huge climatic and geographic range?” she said. |=|
“David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard University, said the work boosted the case for a single migration into Alaska, but did not rule out alternatives involving multiple waves of migration. He added that he was unconvinced that the ancient Beringian group split from the ancestors of other Native Americans 20,000 years ago, because even tiny errors in scientists’ data can lead to radically different split times for evolutionary lineages. “While the 19,000-21,000 year date would have important implications if true and may very well be right, I am not convinced that there is compelling evidence that the initial split date is that old,” he said. |=|
haplogroup MtDNA lineage map for southern South American populations
Genetic Links Between Early Americans and Early Japanese
Aileen Kawagoe wrote in Heritage of Japan: A 1994 study concluded that ancestral lineages of Ainu people migrated across Beringia carrying HTLV-I virus (subtype A) to the American continent in the Paleolithic era. Phlylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA and HLA type analysis suggest there is a relationship between Japanese and Paleo-Indians in South America (DRB10802 was found to be present in almost all Amerindians, Siberian Eskimos and Japanese Ainu but specifically two Meso and South Amerindian DRB1 alleles – DRB10411 and DRB1*0417- are also shared with Siberians and Asian Pacific coast populations (Ainu, Japanese and Taiwan) as well as Athabaskans and Eskimos (other First American inhabitants) with the exception of the Aleuts). [Source: Aileen Kawagoe, Heritage of Japan website, heritageofjapan.wordpress.com]
“A 2000 American Scientist article suggested that the “highest frequencies of these four haplogroups occur in the Altai Mountain/Tuva/Lake Baikal region, implying that this general region gave rise to the founders of Native American populations. Otherwise, haplogroup B is absent in the vast majority of native Siberian populations, haplogroup A occurs at very low frequencies outside of Chukotka, and haplogroups C and D are the predominant mtDNA lineages in northern Asia.
“However, the presence of a certain control region mutation in haplogroups C and D may point to alternative source areas for ancestral Native Americans. This mutation appears in the majority of both haplogroup C and D mtDNAs in Native American populations, suggesting it is part of the original sequence motifs for both of them. Among all Asian and Siberian mtDNAs, however, this mutation only appears in haplogroup C mtDNAs from Mongolia and the Amur River region and in haplogroup D mtDNAs in the Japanese, Korean and Ainu. This distribution suggests that East Asia as well as southeast Siberia or Mongolia might be source areas or migration pathways for these haplogroups."
Adachi N, and others in a study of “Mitochondrial DNA analysis of Jomon skeletons” assigned D1a (along with M7a, N9b) to ancient DNA recovered from 16 Jomon skeletons excavated from Funadomari site, Hokkaido, Japan. The fact that Hokkaido Jomons shared haplogroup D1 with Native Americans validates the hypothesized genetic affinity of the Jomon people to Native Americans, providing direct evidence for the genetic relationships between these populations… It appears that the genetic study of ancient populations in northern part of Japan brings important information to the understanding of human migration in northeast Asia and America. Adachi N, and others in “Mitochondrial DNA analysis of Jomon skeletons from the Funadomari site, Hokkaido, and its implication for the origins of Native American“, Am J Phys Anthropol. 2009 Mar;138(3):255-65. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.20923)]
Siberia, Japan or Both: the Source of Native Americans
Aileen Kawagoe wrote in Heritage of Japan: Some recent scholarship leaned towards South Siberia (between Altai mountains and the Amur valley) as the source of ancestral populations of the Americas. But a 2010 Russian study clarified that while mtDNA haplogroups C and D diversified in southern Siberia, the oldest lineages are found in eastern Asia. A 1996 American study on mtDNA concluded that the four New World founding haplogroups, were detected and likely originated in the two Mongolian populations of Khalkha and Daringaga: [Source: Aileen Kawagoe, Heritage of Japan website, heritageofjapan.wordpress.com]
The Russian study reported: “Based on the current distribution of mtDNA haplogroups, we propose that populations in east Central Asia represent the closest genetic link between the Old World and the New World. All four New World haplogroups [A, B, C, D] have been detected in Mongolian, central Chinese and Tibetan populations that delineate the only region in Asia where all four haplogroups exist and no population lacking any one of the haplogroups occurs. Thus, the narrow strip of east Central Asia that extends from Mongolia to the Pacific coast may have served as the starting point for the human migration that led to colonization of the New World. Furthermore, presence of the four."
“New World haplogroups throughout the Americas, but a restricted distribution in Asia, suggests a single sampling of these haplotypes. The emerging mtDNA picture of genetic diversity in the Americas appears to support a single migration, perhaps sustained over a period of time, of modern humans that gave rise to all contemporary New World populations. This scenario still allows for the possibility of other ancient migrations whose populations did not survive or at least left no maternal, i e . , mtDNA, record of their occupation."
Haplogroup Q Y-DNA worldwide distribution
“The latest general consensus according to a 2010 study “The Initial Peopling of the Americas..." however, is that modern Native American populations ultimately trace their gene pool to (at least 15 maternal lineages of) Asian groups who colonized northeast Siberia, including parts of Beringia, prior to the last glacial period. Native American populations arose from different contributing pools of ancestral populations – pre-LGM haplotypes of Asian ancestry; ancestral population(s) preserved in refugial areas during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) – and other groups from Beringia or eastern Siberia expanded into North America in the millennia after the initial Paleo-Indian migrations.
“Novel haplotypes and alleles arose in situ due to new mutation, eg. a temporally important differentiation stage in Beringia explains the predominance in Native Americans of private alleles and haplogroups such as the autosomal 9-repeat at microsatellite locus D9S1120, the Y chromosome haplogroup Q1a3a-M3, and the pan-American mtDNA haplogroups A2, B2, C1b, C1c, C1d, D1, and D4h3a. Other groups from Beringia or eastern Siberia expanded into North America in the millennia after the initial Paleo-Indian migrations. So admixture with population groups newly arrived from regions located west of Beringia would have resulted in the entry of additional Asian lineages into North America. This explains the presence of certain mtDNA haplogroups such as A2a, A2b, D2a, D3, and X2a only in populations of northern North America. Other recent data show that some native groups from northern North America harbor stronger genetic similarities with some eastern Siberian groups than with Native American groups located more in the South.
However, the 2010 study concluded that the Asian-founding lineages C1d were later arrivals than the other Siberian founding lineages. The study put entry times for other Siberian haplogroups at 15–18 thousand years ago (kya), for the post-LGM arrival from Beringia with early Paleo-Indians as well as for haplogroup X2a, which is thought to have arrived through an ice-free corridor. According to this study C1d was characterized by an expansion time of only 7.6–9.7 kya, and the 2010 Russian Derenko study supported this and clarified that “the C1 branch is represented by C1a subclade which is a sister clade of the Native American subclades C1b, C1c, and C1d, which are dated to 18.6±2.3 kya and most likely arose early – either in Beringia or at a very initial stage of the Paleoindian southward migration. The Asian C1a-branch derived likely from the same ancestral population as the three Native American subclades shows a relatively lower coalescence time varying from 2 to 8.5 kya (1.97±1.97 kya for synonymous clock rate and 8.57 (2.6; 14.75) kya for complete mtDNA clock rate), implying that its expansion from Beringia occurred long after the end of the LGM.
“Following from the foregoing, the bulk of the evidence suggests that the New World was colonized by certain common lineages (C and D haplogroups) that were ancestral to both the people of Japan and the Americas, rather than directly out of Japan itself. According to the Smithsonian Institution, “ancient skeletal remains show a range of physical attributes suggesting separate migrations of different populations of modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) from Asia. The handful of human skeletons dated over 8,000 years ago show some regional variation, but as a group their skulls differ markedly from the broad faces, prominent cheekbones, and round cranial vaults that characterize modern–day American Indians. These ancient specimens have long and narrow cranial vaults with short and relatively gracile faces. Two examples are the 9,400-year-old Spirit Cave Man from Nevada and the most recently discovered 8,900-year-old Kennewick Man found in Washington State in 1996. Physical anthropologists see a greater similarity in these crania to certain Old World populations such as Polynesians, Europeans, and the Ainu of Japan. Only one early specimen, Wizards Beach Man, a Nevada skeleton dated to 9,200 years ago, falls within the range of variability of contemporary American Indians, an exception that requires further scientific validation. Crania with American Indian morphology appears by at least 7,000 years ago. The similarity of the ancient crania to Polynesians suggested that one early source of migrants to the Americas was Asian circumpacific population
DNA From the Ancient Sican Culture in Peru Genetically Linked to People from Japan, Siberia and Taiwan
A study published in 2009 revealed genetic links between people who inhabited northern Peru more than 1,000 years ago and the Ainu in Japan. Archaeology Daily reported: “Japanese physical anthropologist Kenichi Shinoda performed DNA tests on the remains of human bodies found in the East Tomb and West Tomb in the Bosque de Pomas Historical Sanctuary in Peru, which are part of the Sican Culture Archaeological Project, funded by Japan's government. [Source: “DNA links found between ancient Peruvians and Japanese”,Archaeology Daily, January 11, 2009 |=|]
Haplogroup V-M217 Y-DNA worldwide distribution
“The director of the Sican National Museum, Carlos Elera, told the El Comercio newspaper that Shinoda found that people who lived more than 1,000 years ago in what today is the Lambayeque region, about 800 kilometers north of Lima, had genetic links to the contemporaneous populations of Ecuador, Colombia, Siberia, Taiwan and to the Ainu people of northern Japan. The studies will be continued on descendents of the Mochica culture, from the same region, who are currently working on the Sican Project and with people who live in the vicinity of the Bosque de Pomac Historical Sanctuary. |=|
“According to Peruvian archaeologist Luis Chero, “Currently, the DNA results have great value because they can be understood to show that there were people who arrived in these zones from Asia and who then converted these zones into the great culture of the New World." Sophisticated gold, silver and copper jewelry found in the tombs of the ancient Sican rulers and priests." |=|
Kennewick Man's Links to the Ainu and Jomon People in Japan
In 1996, scientists found a complete skeleton of a 9,300-year-old man in Kennewick, Washington, USA, with "apparently Caucasoid" features similar to those found on the skulls of Jomon people — early inhabitants of Japan. This so-called "Kennewick Man" is thought to have descended from Jomon people or a common ancestors of the Jomon people. The discovery of Kennewick Man adds a major piece of evidence to the view that the Americas were first populated by people who traveled along the coast from Asia to North America rather than walking across the Bering Land Bridge from Siberia to Alaska and migrating southward through the ice-free corridor into what is now the United States. “I believe these Asian coastal migrations were the first," Owsley told Smithsonian magazine. “Then you've got a later wave of the people who give rise to Indians as we know them today." [Source: Douglas Preston, Smithsonian Magazine, September 2014 \~]
Kennewick Man
Douglas Preston wrote in Smithsonian Magazine: Kennewick Man “does not belong to any living human population." Owsley believes, he “belongs to an ancient population of seafarers who were America's original settlers. They did not look like Native Americans. The few remains we have of these early people show they had longer, narrower skulls with smaller faces. These mysterious people have long since disappeared." Judging from the shape of Kennewick Man's “skull and bones, his closest living relatives appear to be the Moriori people of the Chatham Islands, a remote archipelago 420 miles southeast of New Zealand, as well as the mysterious Ainu people of Japan. “Just think of Polynesians," said Owsley. \~\
“Not that Kennewick Man himself was Polynesian. This is not Kon-Tiki in reverse; humans had not reached the Pacific Islands in his time period. Rather, he was descended from the same group of people who would later spread out over the Pacific and give rise to modern-day Polynesians. These people were maritime hunter-gatherers of the north Pacific coast; among them were the ancient Jomon, the original inhabitants of the Japanese Islands. The present-day Ainu people of Japan are thought to be descendants of the Jomon. Nineteenth-century photographs of the Ainu show individuals with light skin, heavy beards and sometimes light-colored eyes. \~\
“What became of those pioneers, Kennewick Man's ancestors and companions? They were genetically swamped by much larger—and later—waves of travelers from Asia and disappeared as a physically distinct people, Owsley says. These later waves may have interbred with the first settlers, diluting their genetic legacy. A trace of their DNA still can be detected in some Native American groups, though the signal is too weak to label the Native Americans “descendants." \~\
“Whether this new account of the peopling of North America will stand up as more evidence comes in is not yet known. The bones of a 13,000-year-old teenage girl recently discovered in an underwater cave in Mexico, for example, are adding to the discussion. James Chatters, the first archaeologist to study Kennewick and a participant in the full analysis, reported earlier this year, along with colleagues, that the girl's skull appears to have features in common with that of Kennewick Man and other Paleo-Americans, but she also possesses specific DNA signatures suggesting she shares female ancestry with Native Americans. Kennewick Man may still hold a key. The first effort to extract DNA from fragments of his bone failed, and the corps so far hasn't allowed a better sample to be taken. A second effort to plumb the old fragments is underway at a laboratory in Denmark. “ \~\
There are other takes on these views. Normandie Kent wrote: “The Ainu are not related to Native Americans Kennewick man , nor any other Paleo-Americans. They are a mix of Jomon and Siberian. Native Americans and their ancestors are the first people in the Americas. Ainu are not even in the running. Native Americans were in the Americas when the Ainu settled Japan, They were not exploring anywhere but their own Island. Native Americans are descended from a Basal Asian population, That doesn’t exist anymore, only in them. They are also descended from the Ancient North Eurasian Malta Buret Culture, and the Jomon or the Ainu are not. The Ainu are East Asian, the Native Americans are not. The lie that the two continents of Native American phenotypic diversity is only down to one Skull shape or one type is a fallacy, perpetrated by greedy and lying anthropologists like the down and out Owesly, who just wants to keep the Native American Cultural Patrimony, for his kind. Instead he chose to use a white proxy group like the Ainu, and create a fake tribe of his own like the psuedo Caucasoidal Ainu, they were never white either.” |=|
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Ancient Foods ancientfoods.wordpress.com ; Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP and other publications.
Last updated September 2018