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Ancient DNA Suggests People Settled South America in at Least 3 Waves

Accepted submission by Phoenix666 at 2018-11-09 15:05:31
Science

ScienceNews [sciencenews.org]:

People from North America moved into South America in at least three migration waves, researchers report online November 8 in Cell. The first migrants, who reached South America by at least 11,000 years ago, were genetically related to a 12,600-year-old toddler from Montana known as Anzick-1 [sciencenews.org] (SN: 3/22/14, p. 6). The child’s skeleton was found with artifacts from the Clovis people, who researchers used to think were the first people in the Americas, although that idea has fallen out of favor. Scientists also previously thought these were the only ancient migrants to South America.

But DNA analysis of samples from 49 ancient people suggests a second wave of settlers replaced the Clovis group in South America about 9,000 years ago. And a third group related to ancient people from California’s Channel Islands spread over the Central Andes about 4,200 years ago, geneticist Nathan Nakatsuka of Harvard University and colleagues found.

One mystery produced by the research was genetic markers were found in remains in Brazil that are shared with Australian Aborigines, but by no remains found between them in the Americas.


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