Re: Our Ancestors Journey from Asia to America

Who's to say? I like the idea of folks riding the kelp river that
transverses the whole of the Pacific.

"AmericanIndianDNA.com" <americanindiandna@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:14df8e02-f4d2-4159-a469-5c6b3756d8b5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
This is a good short article by Thomas Maugh of the LA times on how
our ancestors got here.

Human migration from Asia to the Americas occurred in three stages,
with a 20,000-year layover on the frozen strip of land called Beringia
in what is now the Bering Strait, researchers said this week.

Most scientists had believed that the migration occurred in one
continuous passage, but archaeological and genetic evidence indicates
otherwise, anthropologist Connie Mulligan of the University of Florida
and her colleagues reported Wednesday in the online journal PLoS ONE.

Ancestors of current Native American populations migrated eastward out
of Siberia about 40,000 years ago, according to studies of both
mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down from mothers to children, and
nuclear DNA, which contains genes from both parents.

But two major glaciers along their route trapped them in Beringia,
researchers said. The climate would have been similar to that of
Siberia or Mongolia, and the populations would have subsisted by
fishing and hunting for mammoth, bison, caribou and other animals. "It
wasn't paradise, but they survived," Mulligan said.

During the layover, many characteristic mutations developed in their
DNA. When the climate warmed and the glaciers melted 15,000 years ago,
they were able to continue their journey into the New World.

The genetic evidence indicates that 1,000 to 5,000 individuals were
the ancestors of all Native Americans. Previous estimates were as low
as 100 individuals.

As the climate continued to warm, sea levels rose, creating what is
now the Bering Strait and submerging archaeological evidence of the
humans' passage.

"The idea that people were stuck in Beringia for a long time is
obvious in retrospect, but it has never been promulgated," said
anthropologist Henry C. Harpending of the University of Utah, who was
not involved in the study. "It's very plausible."

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Walt
http://AmericanIndianDNA.com


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