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First Americans arrived as 2 separate migrations, according to new genetic evidence
www.physorg.com ^ | 01/09/2009 | Source: Cell Press

Posted on 01/09/2009 7:12:43 AM PST by Red Badger

The first people to arrive in America traveled as at least two separate groups to arrive in their new home at about the same time, according to new genetic evidence published online on January 8th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.

After the Last Glacial Maximum some 15,000 to 17,000 years ago, one group entered North America from Beringia following the ice-free Pacific coastline, while another traversed an open land corridor between two ice sheets to arrive directly into the region east of the Rocky Mountains. (Beringia is the landmass that connected northeast Siberia to Alaska during the last ice age.) Those first Americans later gave rise to almost all modern Native American groups of North, Central, and South America, with the important exceptions of the Na-Dene and the Eskimos-Aleuts of northern North America, the researchers said.

" Recent data based on archeological evidence and environmental records suggest that humans entered the Americas from Beringia as early as 15,000 years ago, and the dispersal occurred along the deglaciated Pacific coastline," said Antonio Torroni of Università di Pavia, Italy. "Our study now reveals a novel alternative scenario: Two almost concomitant paths of migration, both from Beringia about 15,000 to 17,000 years ago, led to the dispersal of Paleo-Indians—the first Americans."

Such a dual origin for Paleo-Indians has major implications for all disciplines involved in Native American studies, he said. For instance, it implies that there is no compelling reason to presume that a single language family was carried along with the first migrants.

When Columbus reached the Americas in 1492, Native American occupation stretched from the Bering Strait to Tierra del Fuego, Torroni explained. Those native populations encompassed extraordinary linguistic and cultural diversity, which has fueled extensive debate among experts over their interrelationships and origins.

Recently, molecular genetics, together with archaeology and linguistics, has begun to provide some insights. In the new study, Ugo Perego and Alessandro Achilli of Torroni's team analyzed mitochondrial DNA from two rare haplogroups, meaning mitochondrial types that share a common maternal ancestor. Mitochondria are cellular components with their own DNA that allow scientists to trace ancestry and migration because they are passed on directly from mother to child over generations.

Their results show that the haplogroup called D4h3 spread from Beringia into the Americas along the Pacific coastal route, rapidly reaching Tierra del Fuego. The other haplogroup, X2a, spread at about the same time through the ice-free corridor between the Laurentide and Cordilleran Ice Sheets and remained restricted to North America.

"A dual origin for the first Americans is a striking novelty from the genetic point of view and makes plausible a scenario positing that within a rather short period of time, there may have been several entries into the Americas from a dynamically changing Beringian source," the researchers concluded.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: acrossatlanticice; antoniotorroni; brucebradley; dennisstanford; dna; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; solutreans
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No wonder Americans have a "wanderlust", it's in our genes!.............
1 posted on 01/09/2009 7:12:43 AM PST by Red Badger
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To: SunkenCiv

Ping!............


2 posted on 01/09/2009 7:13:01 AM PST by Red Badger (I was sad because I had no shoes to throw, until I met a reporter who had no feet.....)
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To: Red Badger

Here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2161382/posts
(posted by the Master)


3 posted on 01/09/2009 7:15:15 AM PST by xcamel (The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it. - H. L. Mencken)
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To: Red Badger
Photobucket
4 posted on 01/09/2009 7:15:34 AM PST by VaBthang4 ("He Who Watches Over Israel Will Neither Slumber Nor Sleep")
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To: Red Badger

This is not news. Scientists have known about the two migration waves for decades.


5 posted on 01/09/2009 7:18:45 AM PST by montag813 (www.FreepShop.com)
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To: Red Badger

I think this is probably true for most of the native groups. But I think the Hopi came from another planet.


6 posted on 01/09/2009 7:18:46 AM PST by wolfpat (Revolt, and re-establish the Constitution as the law of the land!)
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To: Red Badger

I figure it would have been two major migrations and an endless trickle.


7 posted on 01/09/2009 7:23:48 AM PST by cripplecreek (The poor bastards have us surrounded.)
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To: Red Badger; greyfoxx39; Godzilla

What?? They didn’t come from Judea?


8 posted on 01/09/2009 7:26:35 AM PST by colorcountry (To anger a conservative, lie to him. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: Red Badger
Some say the clovis people might have come from Europe:

Solutrean hypothesis
Main article: Solutrean hypothesis
The controversial Solutrean hypothesis proposed in 1999 by Smithsonian archaeologist Dennis Stanford and colleague Bruce Bradley (Stanford and Bradley 2002), suggests that the Clovis people could have inherited technology from the Solutrean people who lived in southern Europe 21,000-15,000 years ago, and who created the first Stone Age artwork in present-day southern France.[16] The link is suggested by the similarity in technology between the projectile points of the Solutreans and those of the Clovis people. Such a theory would require that the Solutreans crossed via the edge of the pack ice in the North Atlantic Ocean that then extended to the Atlantic coast of France. They could have done this using survival skills similar to those of the modern Inuit people. Supporters[who?] of this hypothesis suggest that stone tools found at Cactus Hill (an early American site in Virginia), are knapped in a style between Clovis and Solutrean.[citation needed] Other scholars such as Emerson F. Greenman and Remy Cottevieille-Giraudet have also suggested a Northern Atlantic point of entry, citing toolmaking similarities between Clovis and Solutrean-era artifacts.[citation needed]

9 posted on 01/09/2009 7:26:38 AM PST by Vaquero ( "an armed society is a polite society" Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: Red Badger

And they were all “illegal” immigrants, ergo there should be no borders or immigration controls (especially for potential Democrat voters sneaking into America).


10 posted on 01/09/2009 7:26:48 AM PST by DTogo (I haven't left the GOP, the GOP left me.)
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To: Red Badger

Aha, I was right.

There are no Native Americans - just an argument over when everybody got here.


11 posted on 01/09/2009 7:27:07 AM PST by PeteB570 (NRA - Life member and Black Rifle owner)
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To: Vaquero

I think they did, but were “wiped out” by a meteor strike in the late ice age............


12 posted on 01/09/2009 7:28:47 AM PST by Red Badger (I was sad because I had no shoes to throw, until I met a reporter who had no feet.....)
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To: Vaquero

Soul Train era ? What does Don Cornelius know about it ?


13 posted on 01/09/2009 7:29:06 AM PST by fieldmarshaldj (~"This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps !"~~)
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To: colorcountry

Nah, Samaria.............


14 posted on 01/09/2009 7:29:20 AM PST by Red Badger (I was sad because I had no shoes to throw, until I met a reporter who had no feet.....)
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To: cripplecreek
I figure it would have been two major migrations and an endless trickle.

Kinda like going to the bathroom when you're over fifty...........

15 posted on 01/09/2009 7:34:37 AM PST by Red Badger (I was sad because I had no shoes to throw, until I met a reporter who had no feet.....)
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To: Red Badger
...another traversed an open land corridor between two ice sheets to arrive directly into the region east of the Rocky Mountains.

From where?

16 posted on 01/09/2009 7:37:34 AM PST by decimon
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To: Red Badger

:)


17 posted on 01/09/2009 7:39:11 AM PST by colorcountry (To anger a conservative, lie to him. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: decimon

Siberia


18 posted on 01/09/2009 7:40:08 AM PST by Unassuaged (I have shocking data relevant to the conversation!)
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To: decimon

Europe................


19 posted on 01/09/2009 7:40:43 AM PST by Red Badger (I was sad because I had no shoes to throw, until I met a reporter who had no feet.....)
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To: Red Badger

Hah! You got that right.


20 posted on 01/09/2009 7:41:33 AM PST by Marysecretary (.GOD IS STILL IN CONTROL)
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