Genetic evidence for two founding populations of the Americas.

Nature
Authors
Keywords
Abstract

Genetic studies have consistently indicated a single common origin of Native American groups from Central and South America. However, some morphological studies have suggested a more complex picture, whereby the northeast Asian affinities of present-day Native Americans contrast with a distinctive morphology seen in some of the earliest American skeletons, which share traits with present-day Australasians (indigenous groups in Australia, Melanesia, and island Southeast Asia). Here we analyse genome-wide data to show that some Amazonian Native Americans descend partly from a Native American founding population that carried ancestry more closely related to indigenous Australians, New Guineans and Andaman Islanders than to any present-day Eurasians or Native Americans. This signature is not present to the same extent, or at all, in present-day Northern and Central Americans or in a ∼12,600-year-old Clovis-associated genome, suggesting a more diverse set of founding populations of the Americas than previously accepted.

Year of Publication
2015
Journal
Nature
Volume
525
Issue
7567
Pages
104-8
Date Published
2015 Sep 03
ISSN
1476-4687
URL
DOI
10.1038/nature14895
PubMed ID
26196601
PubMed Central ID
PMC4982469
Links
Grant list
R01 GM100233 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
GM100233 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
Howard Hughes Medical Institute / United States