Ancient Genome Sequences Settle First Americans Debate

摘要

A toddler boy and a teenage girl have settled a contentious debate in archaeology more than 12,000 years after their deaths. In February, researchers published the first ancient American human genome, sequencing DNA from the remains of a boy known as Anzick-1, who was buried about 12,600 years ago in what is now western Montana. The child's genes proved conclusively for the first time that Native Americans are descended from an Asian population that migrated across Beringia - a land bridge now submerged between Siberia and Alaska - at least 15,000 years ago. "The archaeological and genetic stories are beginning to mesh," says Mike Waters, an archaeologist at Texas A&M University and a member of the Anzick-1 team. "It's been a long-held belief that the First Americans gave rise to Native Americans, but having the genetics verified that there were direct or close ties."