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Indian DNA Links To 6 'Founding Mothers'
Yahoo News/AP ^ | 3-13-2008 | Malcom Ritter

Posted on 03/13/2008 2:04:39 PM PDT by blam

Indian DNA links to 6 'founding mothers'

By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer

NEW YORK - Nearly all of today's Native Americans in North, Central and South America can trace part of their ancestry to six women whose descendants immigrated around 20,000 years ago, a DNA study suggests.

Those women left a particular DNA legacy that persists to today in about 95 percent of Native Americans, researchers said.

The finding does not mean that only these six women gave rise to the migrants who crossed into North America from Asia in the initial populating of the continent, said study co-author Ugo Perego.

The women lived between 18,000 and 21,000 years ago, though not necessarily at exactly the same time, he said.

The work was published this week by the journal PLoS One. Perego is from the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation in Salt Lake City and the University of Pavia in Italy.

The work confirms previous indications of the six maternal lineages, he said. But an expert unconnected with the study said the findings left some questions unanswered.

Perego and his colleagues traced the history of a particular kind of DNA that represents just a tiny fraction of the human genetic material, and reflects only a piece of a person's ancestry.

This DNA is found in the mitochondria, the power plants of cells. Unlike the DNA found in the nucleus, mitochondrial DNA is passed along only by the mother. So it follows a lineage that connects a person to his or her mother, then the mother's mother, and so on.

The researchers created a "family tree" that traces the different mitochondrial DNA lineages found in today's Native Americans. By noting mutations in each branch and applying a formula for how often such mutations arise, they calculated how old each branch was. That indicated when each branch arose in a single woman.

The six "founding mothers" apparently did not live in Asia because the DNA signatures they left behind aren't found there, Perego said. They probably lived in Beringia, the now-submerged land bridge that stetched to North America, he said.

Connie Mulligan of the University of Florida, an anthropolgist who studies the colonization of the Americas but didn't participate in the new work, said it's not surprising to trace the mitochondrial DNA to six women. "It's an OK number to start with right now," but further work may change it slightly, she said.

That finding doesn't answer the bigger questions of where those women lived, or of how many people left Beringia to colonize the Americas, she said Thursday.

The estimate for when the women lived is open to question because it's not clear whether the researchers properly accounted for differing mutation rates in mitochondrial DNA, she said. Further work could change the estimate, "possibly dramatically," she said.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: americas; bottleneck; bradshawfoundation; dna; founding; genealogy; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; indian; mammoth; mammoths; mastodon; mastodons; mothers; multiregionalism; preclovis; precolumbian; replacement; toba
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To: Oatka

“find that woman and stop her!” I was a kid the first time I heard that, and I thought the guy said “find that woman a stopper!” I guess it could work either way!!!


41 posted on 03/13/2008 5:29:01 PM PDT by buckeye49
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To: tbw2
Yams (sweet potatos) are native to south america. There had to be colonization at some point in order for Polynesians to have picked up sweet potatos. It isn’t quite like fruit where you plant it, watch the tree pop up, and remember the fruit. You’d need to get cuttings/roots to plant to propogate it, which would take more than a food raid on the coast to get.

Geneticist Bryan Sykes talks about this in one of his books - I think it's the one on the Y Chromosome. Polynesian men travelled to the S. American coast, picked up some crops (like yams) and left Y chromosomes among the Indians there. They're pretty sure it was male-only groups, because they haven't found any Polynesian mitochondrial DNA in S. America (i.e. the kind passed on by women.)

42 posted on 03/13/2008 5:30:17 PM PDT by valkyrieanne
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To: dfwgator

LOZEM GA’IN!!!!


43 posted on 03/13/2008 7:42:22 PM PDT by JewishRighter (Why, oh Why can't it be Hunter???)
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To: DAVEY CROCKETT

Ping.


44 posted on 03/13/2008 7:53:21 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1886546/posts?page=4972#4972 45 Item Communist Manifesto)
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To: Trillion; blam; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 24Karet; 3AngelaD; 49th; ...

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·

 
Gods
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Glyphs
Thanks Trillion and Blam.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
GGG managers are Blam, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
 

· Google · Archaeologica · ArchaeoBlog · Archaeology magazine · Biblical Archaeology Society ·
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45 posted on 03/13/2008 10:08:40 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/______________________Profile updated Saturday, March 1, 2008)
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To: wolfcreek

The Arctic languages are in two groups, and within those groups aren’t very differentiated, as if each is from a single, recent small-group arrival. Farther south in North America, and particularly in South America, the languages are a riot of unrelated and overlapping groups. This means (as one would expect, and which is taken as a given everywhere else in the world such conditions are found) that they’ve been there a long time and the linguistic ancestors didn’t arrive together.

Americas Settled 15,000 Years Ago, Study Says
National Geographic News | 3-13-2008 | Stefan Lovgren
Posted on 03/13/2008 5:12:58 PM EDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1985250/posts


46 posted on 03/13/2008 10:17:19 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/______________________Profile updated Saturday, March 1, 2008)
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The finding does not mean that only these six women gave rise to the migrants who crossed into North America from Asia in the initial populating of the continent, said study co-author Ugo Perego. The women lived between 18,000 and 21,000 years ago, though not necessarily at exactly the same time, he said... The six "founding mothers" apparently did not live in Asia because the DNA signatures they left behind aren't found there... That finding doesn't answer the bigger questions of where those women lived, or of how many people left Beringia to colonize the Americas, she said Thursday. The estimate for when the women lived is open to question because it's not clear whether the researchers properly accounted for differing mutation rates in mitochondrial DNA, she said. Further work could change the estimate, "possibly dramatically," she said.

47 posted on 03/13/2008 10:46:01 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/______________________Profile updated Saturday, March 1, 2008)
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To: Blue State Insurgent; All

“There were only six original women,”

Actually, there may have been a lot more. The mitochondria are only passed from mother to daughter. My grandmothers had 5 daughters and one son on one side, and 2 sons on the other. The 5 daughters had 8 sons and one daughter. The one granddaughter had two sons. End of the line for that mitochondrial DNA. So over the millenia, a lot of women never passed on their mitochondrial DNA.


48 posted on 03/14/2008 2:36:20 AM PDT by gleeaikin
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To: gleeaikin

Good point. It could have been six tribes or “nations” if each tribe or nation had a single maternal ancestor (which at some point seems likely). It doesn’t mean only six women showed up.


49 posted on 03/14/2008 4:07:50 AM PDT by TN4Liberty (Sadly, the grown-ups don't run the GOP.)
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To: Coyoteman
The continents have not moved appreciably during human times.

7000 years?

50 posted on 03/14/2008 5:57:59 AM PDT by ASA Vet (Do we want Huma answering the red phone at 3 a.m.?)
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To: blam

Old Ainu photos also show men with big beards and blue eyes. This is lacking in Japanese


51 posted on 03/14/2008 6:01:49 AM PDT by dennisw (Never bet on a false prophet! <<<||>>> Never bet on Islam!)
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To: dennisw
Old Ainu photos also show men with big beards and blue eyes.

Old color photos?

The first permanent color photo was taken by James Maxwell in 1861.


52 posted on 03/14/2008 6:26:48 AM PDT by ASA Vet (Do we want Huma answering the red phone at 3 a.m.?)
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To: ASA Vet

Blue eyes from traveler’s accounts

How come northern dogs have a tendency to blue eyes? Huskies?

_____________________________
_____________________________

japan-guide.com forum - Blonde, blue-eyed half-Japanese kidsThe Ainu (native asian Japanese) have been known to have blue eyes, red hair, and brown hair. The Japanese are genetically mostly Korean and Ainu. ...
www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?2+26418 - 59k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Gateway to Japan - Google Books Resultby June Kinoshita, Nicholas Palevsky - 1998 - Travel - 808 pages
Compared to the average Japanese, the Ainu have lighter skin, more body hair, a heavier brow-ridge, and deep-set eyes, which are occasionally gray or blue. ...
books.google.com/books?isbn=477002018X...


53 posted on 03/14/2008 6:59:25 AM PDT by dennisw (Never bet on a false prophet! <<<||>>> Never bet on Islam!)
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To: dennisw
How come northern dogs have a tendency to blue eyes? Huskies?

Heredity?

54 posted on 03/14/2008 7:05:43 AM PDT by ASA Vet (Do we want Huma answering the red phone at 3 a.m.?)
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To: dennisw; ASA Vet
The Dixie Dingo

"Genetic (mitochondrial DNA) testing being performed at the University of South Carolina, College of Science and Mathematics, indicates that these dogs, related to the earliest domesticated dogs, are the remnant descendants of the feral pariah canids who came across the Bering land mass 8,000 to 11,000 years ago as hunting companions to the ancestors of the Native Americans."

55 posted on 03/14/2008 7:57:47 AM PDT by blam (Secure the border and enforce the law)
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To: ASA Vet; blam

Not that I know the details but my guess is that Nordic dogs have tendency toward blue eyes for same reason as the Nordic humans. For all I know blue eyes are more protective against snow glare...less tendency to get cataracts from it


56 posted on 03/14/2008 8:35:38 AM PDT by dennisw (Never bet on a false prophet! <<<||>>> Never bet on Islam!)
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To: blam; Coyoteman

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Snider-Pellegrini_Wegener_fossil_map.gif

Just saying it’s possible?


57 posted on 03/14/2008 10:37:38 AM PDT by wolfcreek (Hank Hill's Dad, Cruella and Curious George=Loony Toons)
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To: zencat

Google: Earliest evidence of man in the Americas.

Some suggest 50,000 yrs or more.


58 posted on 03/14/2008 10:45:09 AM PDT by wolfcreek (Hank Hill's Dad, Cruella and Curious George=Loony Toons)
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To: wolfcreek
"Just saying it’s possible?"

Africa and South America broke apart 120 million years ago.

There weren't any people then.

59 posted on 03/14/2008 10:47:35 AM PDT by blam (Secure the border and enforce the law)
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To: wolfcreek
Calico: A 200,000-year Old Site In The Americas?
60 posted on 03/14/2008 10:48:55 AM PDT by blam (Secure the border and enforce the law)
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