Publication Date:
2008-05-31
Description:
The Paleo-Eskimo Saqqaq and Independence I cultures, documented from archaeological remains in Northern Canada and Greenland, represent the earliest human expansion into the New World's northern extremes. However, their origin and genetic relationship to later cultures are unknown. We sequenced a mitochondrial genome from a Paleo-Eskimo human by using 3400-to 4500-year-old frozen hair excavated from an early Greenlandic Saqqaq settlement. The sample is distinct from modern Native Americans and Neo-Eskimos, falling within haplogroup D2a1, a group previously observed among modern Aleuts and Siberian Sireniki Yuit. This result suggests that the earliest migrants into the New World's northern extremes derived from populations in the Bering Sea area and were not directly related to Native Americans or the later Neo-Eskimos that replaced them.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Gilbert, M Thomas P -- Kivisild, Toomas -- Gronnow, Bjarne -- Andersen, Pernille K -- Metspalu, Ene -- Reidla, Maere -- Tamm, Erika -- Axelsson, Erik -- Gotherstrom, Anders -- Campos, Paula F -- Rasmussen, Morten -- Metspalu, Mait -- Higham, Thomas F G -- Schwenninger, Jean-Luc -- Nathan, Roger -- De Hoog, Cees-Jan -- Koch, Anders -- Moller, Lone Nukaaraq -- Andreasen, Claus -- Meldgaard, Morten -- Villems, Richard -- Bendixen, Christian -- Willerslev, Eske -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2008 Jun 27;320(5884):1787-9. doi: 10.1126/science.1159750. Epub 2008 May 29.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Center for Ancient Genetics, Department of Biology, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18511654" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Asian Continental Ancestry Group/genetics
;
DNA, Mitochondrial/*genetics
;
Emigration and Immigration
;
Female
;
Genetics, Population
;
*Genome, Mitochondrial
;
Greenland
;
Hair/chemistry
;
Haplotypes
;
History, Ancient
;
Humans
;
Indians, North American/genetics
;
Inuits/classification/*genetics/history
;
Male
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
;
Sequence Analysis, DNA
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
