Genetic evidence for two founding populations of the Americas.
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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
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Journal | Nature
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Volume | 525
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Issue | 7567
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Pages | 104-8
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Date Published | 2015 Sep 03
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ISSN | 1476-4687
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URL | |
DOI | 10.1038/nature14895
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PubMed ID | 26196601
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PubMed Central ID | PMC4982469
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Grant list | R01 GM100233 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
GM100233 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
Howard Hughes Medical Institute / United States
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