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

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

  • Maanasa Raghavan
  • Matthias Steinrücken
  • Kelley Harris
  • Stephan Schiffels
  • Michael DeGiorgio
  • Cristina E. Valdiosera Morales
  • Maria del Carmen Avila Arcos
  • Anna Sapfo Malaspinas
  • Anders Eriksson
  • Mait Metspalu
  • Julian R Homburger
  • Jeff Wall
  • Omar E Cornejo
  • Tracey Lynn Pierre
  • Morten Rasmussen
  • Paula Campos
  • Peter de Barros Damgaard
  • John Lindo
  • Ene Metspalu
  • Ricardo Rodríguez-Varela
  • Josefina Mansilla
  • Celeste Henrickson
  • Andaine Seguin-Orlando
  • Helena Malmström
  • Thomas Stafford jr.
  • Suyash S Shringarpure
  • Andrés Moreno-Estrada
  • Monika Karmin
  • Kristiina Tambets
  • Anders Bergström
  • Yali Xue
  • Vera Warmuth
  • Andrew D Friend
  • Joy Singarayer
  • Paul Valdes
  • Francois Balloux
  • Ilán Leboreiro
  • Jose Luis Vera
  • Hector Rangel-Villalobos
  • Davide Pettener
  • Donata Luiselli
  • Loren G Davis
  • Evelyne Heyer
  • Christoph P E Zollikofer
  • Marcia S Ponce de León
  • Colin I Smith
  • Vaughan Grimes
  • Kelly-Anne Pike
  • Michael Deal
  • Benjamin T Fuller
  • Bernardo Arriaza
  • Vivien Standen
  • Maria F Luz
  • Francois Ricaut
  • Niede Guidon
  • Ludmila Osipova
  • Mikhail I Voevoda
  • Olga L Posukh
  • Oleg Balanovsky
  • Maria Lavryashina
  • Yuri Bogunov
  • Elza Khusnutdinova
  • Marina Gubina
  • Elena Balanovska
  • Sardana Fedorova
  • Sergey Litvinov
  • Boris Malyarchuk
  • Miroslava Derenko
  • M J Mosher
  • David Archer
  • Jerome Cybulski
  • Barbara Petzelt
  • Joycelynn Mitchell
  • Rosita Worl
  • Paul J Norman
  • Peter Parham
  • Brian M Kemp
  • Toomas Kivisild
  • Chris Tyler-Smith
  • Manjinder S Sandhu
  • Michael Crawford
  • Richard Villems
  • David Glenn Smith
  • Michael R Waters
  • Ted Goebel
  • John R Johnson
  • Ripan S Malhi
  • Mattias Jakobsson
  • David J. Meltzer
  • Andrea Manica
  • Richard Durbin
  • Carlos D Bustamante
  • Yun S Song

How and when the Americas were populated remains contentious. Using ancient and modern genome-wide data, we found 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 (ka) and after no more than an 8000-year isolation period in Beringia. After their arrival to the Americas, ancestral Native Americans diversified into two basal genetic branches around 13 ka, one that is now dispersed across North and South America and the other 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.

Original languageEnglish
Article number6250
JournalScience (New York, N.Y.)
Volume349
Issue number6250
ISSN0036-8075
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015

ID: 145241214