Reconstructing Native American population history.
The peopling of the Americas has been the subject of extensive genetic, archaeological and linguistic research; however, central questions remain unresolved. One contentious issue is whether the settlement occurred by means of a single migration or multiple streams of migration from Siberia. The pattern of dispersals within the Americas is also poorly understood. To address these questions at a higher resolution than was previously possible, we assembled data from 52 Native American and 17 Siberian groups genotyped at 364,470 single nucleotide polymorphisms. Here we show that Native Americans descend from at least three streams of Asian gene flow. Most descend entirely from a single ancestral population that we call 'First American'. However, speakers of Eskimo-Aleut languages from the Arctic inherit almost half their ancestry from a second stream of Asian gene flow, and the Na-Dene-speaking Chipewyan from Canada inherit roughly one-tenth of their ancestry from a third stream. We show that the initial peopling followed a southward expansion facilitated by the coast, with sequential population splits and little gene flow after divergence, especially in South America. A major exception is in Chibchan speakers on both sides of the Panama isthmus, who have ancestry from both North and South America.
Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. reich@genetics.med.harvard.edu
David
D
Reich
Nick
N
Patterson
Desmond
D
Campbell
Arti
A
Tandon
Stéphane
S
Mazieres
Nicolas
N
Ray
Maria V
MV
Parra
Winston
W
Rojas
Constanza
C
Duque
Natalia
N
Mesa
Luis F
LF
García
Omar
O
Triana
Silvia
S
Blair
Amanda
A
Maestre
Juan C
JC
Dib
Claudio M
CM
Bravi
Graciela
G
Bailliet
Daniel
D
Corach
Tábita
T
Hünemeier
Maria Cátira
MC
Bortolini
Francisco M
FM
Salzano
María Luiza
ML
Petzl-Erler
Victor
V
Acuña-Alonzo
Carlos
C
Aguilar-Salinas
Samuel
S
Canizales-Quinteros
Teresa
T
Tusié-Luna
Laura
L
Riba
Maricela
M
Rodríguez-Cruz
Mardia
M
Lopez-Alarcón
Ramón
R
Coral-Vazquez
Thelma
T
Canto-Cetina
Irma
I
Silva-Zolezzi
Juan Carlos
JC
Fernandez-Lopez
Alejandra V
AV
Contreras
Gerardo
G
Jimenez-Sanchez
Maria José
MJ
Gómez-Vázquez
Julio
J
Molina
Angel
A
Carracedo
Antonio
A
Salas
Carla
C
Gallo
Giovanni
G
Poletti
David B
DB
Witonsky
Gorka
G
Alkorta-Aranburu
Rem I
RI
Sukernik
Ludmila
L
Osipova
Sardana A
SA
Fedorova
René
R
Vasquez
Mercedes
M
Villena
Claudia
C
Moreau
Ramiro
R
Barrantes
David
D
Pauls
Laurent
L
Excoffier
Gabriel
G
Bedoya
Francisco
F
Rothhammer
Jean-Michel
JM
Dugoujon
Georges
G
Larrouy
William
W
Klitz
Damian
D
Labuda
Judith
J
Kidd
Kenneth
K
Kidd
Anna
A
Di Rienzo
Nelson B
NB
Freimer
Alkes L
AL
Price
Andrés
A
Ruiz-Linares
D000569:Americas; D001208:Asia; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004641:Emigration and Immigration / Q000266:history* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D051456:Gene Flow; D005828:Genetics, Population; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans; D007198:Indians, North American / Q000235:genetics* / Q000266:history*; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010802:Phylogeny; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide / Q000235:genetics; D012800:Siberia