Palaeo-Eskimo genetic ancestry and the peopling of Chukotka and North America
Much of the American Arctic was first settled 5,000 years ago, by groups of people known as Palaeo-Eskimos. They were subsequently joined and largely displaced around 1,000 years ago by ancestors of the present-day Inuit and Yup'ik(1-3). The genetic relationship between Palaeo-Eskimos and Nativ...
Published in: | Nature |
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Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | unknown |
Published: |
Nature Publishing Group
2020
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10371/206206 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1251-y |
Summary: | Much of the American Arctic was first settled 5,000 years ago, by groups of people known as Palaeo-Eskimos. They were subsequently joined and largely displaced around 1,000 years ago by ancestors of the present-day Inuit and Yup'ik(1-3). The genetic relationship between Palaeo-Eskimos and Native American, Inuit, Yup'ik and Aleut populations remains uncertain(4-6). Here we present genomic data for 48 ancient individuals from Chukotka, East Siberia, the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, and the Canadian Arctic. We co-analyse these data with data from present-day Alaskan Inupiat and West Siberian populations and published genomes. Using methods based on rare-allele and haplotype sharing, as well as established techniques(4,7-9), we show that Palaeo-Eskimo-related ancestry is ubiquitous among people who speak Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleut languages. We develop a comprehensive model for the Holocene peopling events of Chukotka and North America, and show that Na-Dene-speaking peoples, people of the Aleutian Islands, and Yup'ik and Inuit across the Arctic region all share ancestry from a single Palaeo-Eskimo-related Siberian source. Y 1 |
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