Genomic evidence for the Pleistocene and recent population history of Native Americans

• Published in: Science
• Main Authors: Raghavan, Maanasa, Steinrücken, Matthias, Harris, Kelley, Schiffels, Stephan, Rasmussen, Simon, DeGiorgio, Michael, Albrechtsen, Anders, Valdiosera, Cristina, Ávila-Arcos, María C., Malaspinas, Anna-Sapfo, Crawford, Michael H., Song, Yun S., Nielsen, Rasmus, Willerslev, Eske
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science 2017
• Subjects: Kya; Beringia; Siberia
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1808/24003; https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aab3884

This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission of the AAAS for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science on 2015 August 21; 349(6250), DOI:10.1126/science.aab3884. How and when the Americas were populated remains contentious. Using ancient and modern genome-wide data, we find that the ancestors of all present-day Native Americans, including Athabascans and Amerindians, entered the Americas as a single migration wave from Siberia no earlier than 23 thousand years ago (KYA), and after no more than 8,000-year isolation period in Beringia. Following their arrival to the Americas, ancestral Native Americans diversified into two basal genetic branches around 13 KYA, one that is now dispersed across North and South America and the other is restricted to North America. Subsequent gene flow resulted in some Native Americans sharing ancestry with present-day East Asians (including Siberians) and, more distantly, Australo-Melanesians. Putative ‘Paleoamerican’ relict populations, including the historical Mexican Pericúes and South American Fuego-Patagonians, are not directly related to modern Australo-Melanesians as suggested by the Paleoamerican Model.