Reconstructing Native American population history.

Nature
Authors
Keywords
Abstract

The peopling of the Americas has been the subject of extensive genetic, archaeological and linguistic research; however, central questions remain unresolved. One contentious issue is whether the settlement occurred by means of a single migration or multiple streams of migration from Siberia. The pattern of dispersals within the Americas is also poorly understood. To address these questions at a higher resolution than was previously possible, we assembled data from 52 Native American and 17 Siberian groups genotyped at 364,470 single nucleotide polymorphisms. Here we show that Native Americans descend from at least three streams of Asian gene flow. Most descend entirely from a single ancestral population that we call 'First American'. However, speakers of Eskimo-Aleut languages from the Arctic inherit almost half their ancestry from a second stream of Asian gene flow, and the Na-Dene-speaking Chipewyan from Canada inherit roughly one-tenth of their ancestry from a third stream. We show that the initial peopling followed a southward expansion facilitated by the coast, with sequential population splits and little gene flow after divergence, especially in South America. A major exception is in Chibchan speakers on both sides of the Panama isthmus, who have ancestry from both North and South America.

Year of Publication
2012
Journal
Nature
Volume
488
Issue
7411
Pages
370-4
Date Published
2012 Aug 16
ISSN
1476-4687
URL
DOI
10.1038/nature11258
PubMed ID
22801491
PubMed Central ID
PMC3615710
Links
Grant list
GM079558 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
R01 GM100233 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
NS037484 / NS / NINDS NIH HHS / United States
BB/1021213/1 / Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council / United Kingdom
R01 HG006399 / HG / NHGRI NIH HHS / United States
GM079558-S1 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
Canadian Institutes of Health Research / Canada
HG006399 / HG / NHGRI NIH HHS / United States
MH075007 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States
NS043538 / NS / NINDS NIH HHS / United States
R21 DK073818 / DK / NIDDK NIH HHS / United States
R01 MH075007 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States
R01 GM079558 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
GM057672 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
P01 GM057672 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
R01 NS037484 / NS / NINDS NIH HHS / United States
R01 NS043538 / NS / NINDS NIH HHS / United States