In the local people's tongue, her name means 'sunrise girl-child', and even though she only lived for six fleeting weeks, she's already told scientists more than we ever knew about the very first Native Americans.
Sunrise girl-child ("Xach'itee'aanenh T'eede Gaay") lived some 11,500 years ago in what is now called Alaska, and her ancient DNA reveals not only the origins of Native American society, but reminds the world of a whole population of people forgotten by history millennia ago.
"We didn't know this population existed," says anthropologist Ben Potter from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
"It would be difficult to overstate the importance of this newly revealed people to our understanding of how ancient populations came to inhabit the Americas."
[...] "[This is] the first direct evidence of the initial founding Native American population," Potter says. "It is markedly more complex than we thought."
Source: http://www.sciencealert.com/dna-11-000-years-ago-reveals-origins-native-americans-ancient-beringians
J. VĂctor Moreno-Mayar, et. al. Terminal Pleistocene Alaskan genome reveals first founding population of Native Americans. Nature, doi:10.1038/nature25173
(Score: 2, Informative) by petecox on Tuesday January 09 2018, @08:23AM (1 child)
In Canada they seem to prefer the term "first nation"
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 09 2018, @11:48AM
Better but then they probably don't play Cowboys and First Nationals as kids up there what with no serious history of cattle ranching.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.