Genetics Link Native Americans to Ancient Siberians

Tor overlooking an expanse of the Bering Land Bridge.

Recent genetic studies are confirming what scientists have long suspected about the origins of Native Americans ~ their genetic source is in Asia, specifically a mountainous area in southern Siberia known as the Altai region.

The new studies are from the University of Pennsylvania and the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, Russia. Researchers say the natives of Altai probably migrated across the Bering Land Bridge to North America.

Altai is located at the four corners of what is today China, Russia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. Says research leader Theodore Schurr of the University of Pennsylvania: "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."

The team analyzed the genetics in both mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome DNA, comparing samples to those that had previously been collected from individuals in southern Siberia, East Asia, Central Asia, Mongolia, and a number of different Native American groups. 

"We find forms of haplogroups C and D in southern Altaians and D in northern Altaians that look like some of the founder types that arose in North America, although the northern Altaians appeared more distantly related to Native Americans" says Schurr. 

Researchers have concluded that the Altaian lineage diverged genetically from the Native American lineage about 13,000 to 14,000 years ago. This correlates with current theories that support the migration of peoples into the Americas from Siberia between roughly 15,000 and 20,000 years ago.

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Linguists Find Ancient Language Links

Section of Bering Land Bridge National Preserve where migration occurred.

Linguists are finding ancient-language connections between remote Asian tribes and native peoples in North America, providing more evidence of an ancient migration across the Bering Land Bridge.

The work of Western Washington University linguistics professor Edward Vajda with the isolated Ket people of Central Siberia is revealing more and more examples of an ancient language connection with the language family of Na-Dene, which includes Tlingit, Gwich'in, Dena'ina, Koyukon, Navajo, Carrier, Hupa, Apache and about 45 other languages.

Of the 1,200 Ket people, only about 100, all older than 55, still speak the language. The importance of studying a disappearing language goes far beyond a personal linguistic interest, Vajda explained.

According to SeattlePI.com:

"It's a new way to understand human prehistory before there were historians to write it down,” he told SeattlePI.com “Isolated languages like Ket have developed features that are very unusual and interesting, and they help us to understand the human mind and human language ability."

"We linguists should not be the focus of attention here," Vajda added. "What is important are the languages and especially the Native communities themselves."

Vajda takes no credit for coming up with the Asian language connection.

"People developed the beginnings of these ideas even 300 years ago, and in 1923 someone made the specific claim I am arguing for," he said. "My work builds on vocabulary comparisons made by other linguists in the late 1990s as well."

Click here for the complete SeattlePI.com article.

Photo shows re-created Na-Dene woman.

Thanks to Christopher Hileman for forwarding the article.