World study: if American, ancestors walked Bering land bridge

William Atkins
Wednesday, 28 November 2007 22:52

Science - Biology

Specifically, according to the abstract of the paper,  the researchers found: “(1) a higher level of diversity and lower level of population structure in western South America compared to eastern South America, (2) a relative lack of differentiation between Mesoamerican and Andean populations, (3) a scenario in which coastal routes were easier for migrating peoples to traverse in comparison with inland routes, and (4) a partial agreement on a local scale between genetic similarity and the linguistic classification of populations.”

The research team contends that if the other theories were true (that Native Americans landed on various spots throughout the Americas), then the mutation would not be present as widely throughout the Americas.

Thus, they conclude that the original discoverers of the Americas made a single migration at one point, rather than several migrations at various points of entry.

The researchers support the theory that once the newly arrived Asians arrived in America they primarily used boats to migrate southward, rather than walking on the icy land.

The researchers conclude, “These findings offer new insights into the process of population dispersal and differentiation during the peopling of the Americas,” and “These and other observations from our study will be useful alongside archaeological, geological, and linguistic data for piecing together a more detailed description of the settlement history of the Americas.”

Authors of the study, from the United States, United Kingdom, Columbia, Peru, Canada, Brazil, and Chile, include Sijia Wang, Cecil M. Lewis Jr., Mattias Jakobsson , Sohini Ramachandran, Nicolas Ray, Gabriel Bedoya, Winston Rojas, Maria V. Parra, Julio A. Molina, Carla Gallo, Guido Mazzotti, Giovanni Poletti, Kim Hill, Ana M. Hurtado, Damian Labuda, William Klitz, Ramiro Barrantes, Maria Cátira Bortolini, Francisco M. Salzano, Maria Luiza Petzl-Erle, Luiza T. Tsuneto, Elena Llop, Francisco Rothhammer, Laurent Excoffier, Marcus W. Feldman, Noah A. Rosenberg , Andrés Ruiz-Linares.