New Genetic Research Suggests Link Between Earliest Native Americans and Southern Siberia

Penn study results strengthen the theory that at least some of the earliest Native Americans may have found their way into the Americas across the ancient Bering Land Bridge from Siberia.

Ancestors of the earliest Native Americans may indeed be traced to Asia, according to a recent genetic study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania and the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, Russia. The researchers, led by Theodore Schurr, an associate professor in Penn's Department of Anthropology, in collaboration with Ludmila Osipova of the Institute, suggest that an ancient people living in a mountainous region in southern Siberia may have been the genetic source for those who migrated westward, possibly crossing the Bering Land Bridge to become the earliest Native Americans.

Known as the Altai region, it is located at the four corners of what is today China, Russia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. Says Schurr, it "is a key area because it's a place that people have been coming and going for thousands and thousands of years. Our goal in working in this area was to better define what those founding lineages or sister lineages are to Native American populations." ...

Popular Archaeology
The detailed study is published in the American Journal of Human Genetics

Link 3: 28-01-12. Antropólogos de la Universidad de Pennsylvania aclaran la relación genética entre los asiáticos y los primeros nativos americanos.