Native Americans Descended From A Single Ancestral Group, DNA Study Confirms (Science Daily)

[eppur_se_muova]

ScienceDaily (Apr. 29, 2009) — For two decades, researchers have been using a growing volume of genetic data to debate whether ancestors of Native Americans emigrated to the New World in one wave or successive waves, or from one ancestral Asian population or a number of different populations.

Now, after painstakingly comparing DNA samples from people in dozens of modern-day Native American and Eurasian groups, an international team of scientists thinks it can put the matter to rest: virtually without exception, the new evidence supports the single ancestral population theory.

“Our work provides strong evidence that, in general, Native Americans are more closely related to each other than to any other existing Asian populations, except those that live at the very edge of the Bering Strait,” said Kari Britt Schroeder, a lecturer at the University of California, Davis, and the first author on the paper describing the study.

“While earlier studies have already supported this conclusion, what’s different about our work is that it provides the first solid data that simply cannot be reconciled with multiple ancestral populations,” said Schroeder, who was a Ph.D. student in anthropology at the university when she did the research.

The study is published in the May issue of the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.
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more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090428223836.htm

abstract of study (full article for subscribers): http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/gca?sendit=Get+All+Checked+Abstract%28s%29&gca=26%2F5%2F995

[NMDemDist2]

1. interesting!!! one intrepid (or desperate) group make the crossing

and populated a continent.

:wow:

[LeftyMom]

2. But I thought they were a lost tribe of Israel, riding horses and building invisible cities,

waiting for Jesus to stop in.

You mean the Mormons lied to me? :rofl:

[old mark]

7. They lied to everybody else, too. Mainly themselves. nt

[HereSince1628]

3. That's about survivors, is there a possibility that other groups

did not survive?

[opihimoimoi]

5. The odds suggest there musta been more than one group....but only one group made it to the Promised

Land

[Orsino]

14. Or other groups, perhaps, were simply out-competed...

...leaving no American descendants.

[Sal Minella]

4. This study did not include the Maya or the Aztec?

[opihimoimoi]

6. Pretty sure the study included all natives from Alaska to Chile Southern Tip.

[Sal Minella]

9. I read that in the article, but "to the southern tip of Chile" could mean just

the coastal groups -- seems odd to me they didn't mention the Aztec descendants and Mayan descendants specifically if they were included in the study? I'd like to see their "Methods" section in the paper.

[Codeine]

11. Why wouldn't they have been included?

Is there something you're trying to imply?

[Sal Minella]

13. No. Just wondering whether or not they were included.

Would like to see the article in full because I'm curious about how the study populations were chosen.

I don't understand enough about the hereditary passdown of "alleles" to imply anything.

[Cronus Protagonist]

8. So much for the book of mormon

Jesus' relatives didn't emigrate here.

[Igel]

10. The first sentence isn't quite coherent.

"For two decades, researchers have been using a growing volume of genetic data to debate whether ancestors of Native Americans emigrated to the New World in one wave or successive waves, or from one ancestral Asian population or a number of different populations."

Could they distinguish between one wave of settlers from a single founding population in NE Asia or successive waves from the same founding population?

The abstract explicitly says the data don't distinguish between the two scenarios, however the science reporter claims the article crucially supports just the first option.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

12. I would have expected

a greater degree of genetic influence from Polynesia into S. America, but maybe that's from more recent history.

Boy, this must have been one helluva giant playground for them to come to.