Palaeo-Eskimo Genetic Ancestry and the Peopling of Chukotka and North America

Paleo-Eskimos were the first people to settle vast regions of the American Arctic around 5,000 years ago, and were subsequently joined and largely displaced around 1,000 years ago by ancestors of present-day Inuit and Yup’ik1-3. The genetic relationship between Paleo-Eskimos and Native American, Inu...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature
Main Authors: Flegontov, Pavel, Rohland-Pinello, Nadin, Mallick, Swapan, Flegontova, Olga, Jeong, Choongwon, Keating, Denise, Lawson, Ann, Oppenheimer, Jonas, Raff, Jennifer, Skoglund, Pontus, Stewardson, Kristin, Vasilyev, Sergey, Veselovskaya, Elizaveta, Hayes, M. Geoffrey, Krause, Johannes, Pinhasi, Ron, Reich, David, Changmai, Piya, Adamski, Nicole, Bolnick, Deborah, Culleton, Brendan, Harper, Thomas, Kennett, Douglas, Kim, Alexander, Lamnidis, Thiseas, Olalde, Iñigo, Potter, Ben, Sattler, Robert, Vajda, Edwards, O’Rourke, Dennis, Schiffels, Stephan, Broomandkhoshbacht, Nasreen, Candilio, Francesca, Friesen, Max, Altınışık, Ezgi
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Springer Science and Business Media LLC 2019
Subjects:
Multidisciplinary
Arctic
aleut
Chukotka
eskimo*
Eskimo–Aleut
inuit
Paleo-Eskimo
Alaska
Aleutian Islands
Siberia
Online Access:https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37374217
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1251-y
Description
Summary:Paleo-Eskimos were the first people to settle vast regions of the American Arctic around 5,000 years ago, and were subsequently joined and largely displaced around 1,000 years ago by ancestors of present-day Inuit and Yup’ik1-3. The genetic relationship between Paleo-Eskimos and Native American, Inuit, Yup’ik and Aleut populations remains uncertain4-7. Here we present new genomic data for 48 ancient individuals from Chukotka, East Siberia, the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, and the Canadian Arctic. We co-analyze these data with new data from present-day Alaskan Iñupiat and West Siberian populations and published genomes. Employing new methods based on rare allele and haplotype sharing as well as established methods4,8-10, we show that Paleo-Eskimo-related admixture is ubiquitous among populations speaking Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleut languages. We develop a comprehensive model for the Holocene peopling events of Chukotka and North America, and show that several key migrations connected to the origin of the Na-Dene peoples, the peopling of the Aleutian Islands, and the spread of Yup’ik and Inuit across the Arctic region are genetically linked to a single Siberian source related to Paleo-Eskimos. Accepted Manuscript

Similar Items