DNA study settles another pre-history human ancestry mystery

[lunatica]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090428223836.htm

Native Americans Descended From A Single Ancestral Group, DNA Study Confirms

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.

MOre at the link...

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Redundant young earth creationist joke in 5, 4, 3...

[lunatica]

2. The partiacular alleles they found in Native American DNA isn't found in Asians

[dipsydoodle]

3. So does that also settle the arguement

as to whether they came from Asia or Europe ?

[lunatica]

4. No. From the same article

"...the fact that the allele was absent in other Asian populations most likely meant that America’s ancestral founders had been isolated from the rest of Asia for thousands of years before they moved into the New World: that is, for a period of time that was long enough to allow the allele to originate in, and spread throughout, the isolated population."

[xchrom]

5. really fascinating -- they were absent from

groups in asia that long before they crossed to north america.