Ancient DNA Reveals Complex Story of Human Migration Between Siberia and North America
Two studies greatly increase the amount of information we have about the peoples who first populated North America—from the Arctic to the Southwest U.S.
By Brian Handwerk
smithsonian.com
June 5, 2019
Ancient DNA Reveals Complex Story of Human Migration Between Siberia and North America
Two studies greatly increase the amount of information we have about the peoples who first populated North America—from the Arctic to the Southwest U.S.
By Brian Handwerk
SMITHSONIAN.COM
JUNE 5, 2019
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that humans migrated to the North American continent via Beringia, a land mass that once bridged the sea between what is now Siberia and Alaska. But exactly who crossed, or recrossed, and who survived as ancestors of today’s Native Americans has been a matter of long debate.
Two new DNA studies sourced from rare fossils on both sides of the Bering Strait help write new chapters in the stories of these prehistoric peoples.
The first study delves into the genetics of North American peoples, the Paleo-Eskimos (some of the earliest people to populate the Arctic) and their descendants. “[The research] focuses on the populations living in the past and today in northern North America, and it shows interesting links between Na-Dene speakers with both the first peoples to migrate into the Americas and Paleo-Eskimo peoples,” Anne Stone, an anthropological geneticist at Arizona State University who assessed both studies for Nature, says via email.
Beringia had formed by about 34,000 years ago, and the first mammoth-hunting humans crossed it more than 15,000 years ago and perhaps far earlier. A later, major migration some 5,000 years ago by people known as Paleo-Eskimos spread out across many regions of the American Arctic and Greenland. But whether they are direct ancestors of today’s Eskimo-Aleut and Na-Dene speaking peoples, or if they were displaced by a later migration of the Neo-Eskimos, or Thule people, about 800 years ago, has remained something of a mystery.
Map of what was once the Beringia connection between present-day Siberia and Alaska. (National Park Service)
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ancient-dna-reveals-complex-story-human-migration-between-siberia-and-north-america-180972356/#FCGJOZwCobT2hIxC.99