Two contemporaneous mitogenomes from terminal Pleistocene burials in eastern Beringia

Pleistocene residential sites with multiple contemporaneous human burials are extremely rare in the Americas. We report mitochondrial genomic variation in the first multiple mitochondrial genomes from a single prehistoric population: two infant burials (USR1 and USR2) from a common interment at the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Main Authors: Tackney, Justin C., Potter, Ben A., Raff, Jennifer, Powers, Michael, Watkins, W. Scott, Warner, Derek, Reuther, Joshua D., Irish, Joel D., O'Rourke, Dennis H.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: National Academy of Sciences 2016
Subjects:
Pleistocene Burials
Ancient Mitochondrial DNA
Paleogenomics
Peopling
Americas
Alaska
Beringia
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1808/22201
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1511903112
Description
Summary:Pleistocene residential sites with multiple contemporaneous human burials are extremely rare in the Americas. We report mitochondrial genomic variation in the first multiple mitochondrial genomes from a single prehistoric population: two infant burials (USR1 and USR2) from a common interment at the Upward Sun River Site in central Alaska dating to ∼11,500 cal B.P. Using a targeted capture method and next-generation sequencing, we determined that the USR1 infant possessed variants that define mitochondrial lineage C1b, whereas the USR2 genome falls at the root of lineage B2, allowing us to refine younger coalescence age estimates for these two clades. C1b and B2 are rare to absent in modern populations of northern North America. Documentation of these lineages at this location in the Late Pleistocene provides evidence for the extent of mitochondrial diversity in early Beringian populations, which supports the expectations of the Beringian Standstill Model.

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