DNA tracks ancient Alaskan's descendants

The Anchorage Daily News ^ | 28 Dec 2008 | George Bryson

[BGHater]

10,300 YEARS OLD: Tests of Southeast Natives challenge prior anthropological results.

An ancient mariner who lived and died 10,000 years ago on an island west of Ketchikan probably doesn't have any close relatives left in Alaska.

But some of them migrated south and their descendents can be found today in coastal Native American populations in California, Mexico, Ecuador, Chile and Argentina.

That's some of what scientists learned this summer by examining the DNA of Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian Indians in Southeast Alaska.

Working with elders at a cultural festival in Juneau, they interviewed more than 200 Native Alaskans who allowed them to swab tiny amounts of saliva from their cheeks to capture their mitochondrial DNA, the genetic material that's passed from mothers to children.

Preliminary examination of those cell particles indicates:

• None of the participants possessed DNA similar to that extracted from On Your Knees Cave man, the 10,300-year-old Alaskan whose remains were discovered 12 years ago in a shallow cavern on Prince of Wales Island.

• But some participants appear to be closely linked genetically to coastal Indian tribes in British Columbia and Washington state, in spite of anthropological studies that claim Tlingits were originally an Interior people, like the nearby Athabascans.

"We haven't seen connections inland yet ... looking at just the very first couple of samples," said Washington State University Assistant Professor Brian Kemp, the molecular anthropologist who led the research. "That doesn't mean we won't. But right now we only have these long-distant connections."

Apparently On Your Knees Cave man only has long-distant relatives too.

[BGHater]

ping.

[SunkenCiv]

:’) alas...

DNA tracks ancient Alaskan’s descendants [ On Your Knees Cave man ]
ADN | December 28th, 2008 | George Bryson
Posted on 12/30/2008 8:09:14 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2156525/posts

[SunkenCiv]

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[BGHater]

WTH. how about a DNA in the Keyword please.

[SunkenCiv]

I was trying to put that in, but was in the process of posting the topic using my new handheld PC gizmo, while climbing this spiral ladder...

[BGHater]

Lol. Thanks for the GGG. Alaska or DNA not a keyword. crazy.

Thanks again.

[SunkenCiv]

The FR title search engine thing isn’t all that could be wished, either.