About us
Click title to download full pdf
Abstract from Mitochondrial DNA and the Peopling of the New World" Genetic variations among Native Americans provide further clues to who first populated the Americas and when they arrived.
Anthropologists have long speculated on the origins of the native populations in the Americas. One of the more recent theories holds that three distinct waves of immigrants--corresponding to three proposed linguistic groups among Native Americans (Amerind, Na-Dene and Eskaleut)--crossed the Bering strait from Asia no earlier than 13,000 years ago. Molecular anthropologist Theodore Schurr’s research on genetic variation in the mitochondrial DNA of native populations in Asia and the Americas casts some doubt on this view. His research suggests that the first Americans may have come to the New World more than 30,000 years ago. Although there is concordance between the linguistic and genetic affinities of Na-Dene Indians and Eskimo-Aleuts, this type of linkage is less robust for the so-called Amerinds. According to Schurr the genetic evidence is, instead, more consistent with a complex migration pattern involving at least two ancient expansions of ancestral populations who may have come from widely separated parts of the Asian continent, as well as the re-expansion of Beringian populations into the New World following the last period of glaciation.
Beringian Land bridge
Map of Amerindian Haplogroup Frequencies Linguistic Groups
Figure 4. Distribution of haplogroup frequencies (pie charts) among Amerindian populations does not correspond in any simple way to language-group affiliations, suggesting that a tripartite model of migration to the New World (based on three hypothesized language groups) may be too simple. However, virtually all of the northern Na-Dene mtDNAs belong to haplogroup A, whereas those of the southern Na-Dene also include some from haplogroups B, C and D, indicating that the southern populations have mixed with the neighboring Amerindian populations since their arrival in the American Southwest some 500-to-1, 000 years ago. Certain other trends are also evident: Haplogroup A declines in frequency from north to south, whereas haplogroups C and D increase in frequency. By contrast, there is no obvious clinal distribution for haplogroup B (aside from its absence in northern North America). Whether these distributions reflect the original pattern of settlement in the Americas or subsequent genetic differentiation is not entirely clear.
Source: Theodore G. Schurr, American Scientist, May-June 2000, Volume 88, No. 3.
Tracing Evolutionary Relationships Among Native Americans
D. Andrew Merriwether, Francisco Rothhammer and Robert E. Ferrell, "Distribution of the Four Founding Lineage Haplotypes in Native Americans Suggests a Single Wave of Migration for the New World," American Journal of Physical Anthropology 98, 411-30 (1995).
Thus, Our Goals are:
1. To trace which specific Amerind haplotypes eventually populated South America and the Caribbean
2. To trace their tracks back to the geographic area from which they originated
3. To find deep ancestral relationships
4. To establish a database of all Amerind/Native American mtDNA haplotypes
5. Finally, to possibly direct our genealogy research efforts to otherwise unsuspected geographic areas.
Only Kit ID and haplotype sequences will be shown. Should you wish to contact a particular individual, please contact the administrator with the kit ID with whom you match. Please, we ask that the project members add their maternal line gedcom to their FTDNA personal page. Maternal surnames usually change generation to generation. If you wish the surname for your most ancient maternal ancestor posted in the surname list, please send me an e-mail. For the time being we will use this page as a repository for your Haplotype sequences. N This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Commercial use is not allowed. The information is free for personal users and researchers, attribution is required on derivative works and a share-alike license applies. You can click on the image or the link for more information. There may be errors in this work. You should do your own research and should not rely on the correctness of information here.
Abstract from Mitochondrial DNA and the Peopling of the New World" Genetic variations among Native Americans provide further clues to who first populated the Americas and when they arrived.
Anthropologists have long speculated on the origins of the native populations in the Americas. One of the more recent theories holds that three distinct waves of immigrants--corresponding to three proposed linguistic groups among Native Americans (Amerind, Na-Dene and Eskaleut)--crossed the Bering strait from Asia no earlier than 13,000 years ago. Molecular anthropologist Theodore Schurr’s research on genetic variation in the mitochondrial DNA of native populations in Asia and the Americas casts some doubt on this view. His research suggests that the first Americans may have come to the New World more than 30,000 years ago. Although there is concordance between the linguistic and genetic affinities of Na-Dene Indians and Eskimo-Aleuts, this type of linkage is less robust for the so-called Amerinds. According to Schurr the genetic evidence is, instead, more consistent with a complex migration pattern involving at least two ancient expansions of ancestral populations who may have come from widely separated parts of the Asian continent, as well as the re-expansion of Beringian populations into the New World following the last period of glaciation.
Beringian Land bridge
Map of Amerindian Haplogroup Frequencies Linguistic Groups
Figure 4. Distribution of haplogroup frequencies (pie charts) among Amerindian populations does not correspond in any simple way to language-group affiliations, suggesting that a tripartite model of migration to the New World (based on three hypothesized language groups) may be too simple. However, virtually all of the northern Na-Dene mtDNAs belong to haplogroup A, whereas those of the southern Na-Dene also include some from haplogroups B, C and D, indicating that the southern populations have mixed with the neighboring Amerindian populations since their arrival in the American Southwest some 500-to-1, 000 years ago. Certain other trends are also evident: Haplogroup A declines in frequency from north to south, whereas haplogroups C and D increase in frequency. By contrast, there is no obvious clinal distribution for haplogroup B (aside from its absence in northern North America). Whether these distributions reflect the original pattern of settlement in the Americas or subsequent genetic differentiation is not entirely clear.
Source: Theodore G. Schurr, American Scientist, May-June 2000, Volume 88, No. 3.
Tracing Evolutionary Relationships Among Native Americans
D. Andrew Merriwether, Francisco Rothhammer and Robert E. Ferrell, "Distribution of the Four Founding Lineage Haplotypes in Native Americans Suggests a Single Wave of Migration for the New World," American Journal of Physical Anthropology 98, 411-30 (1995).
Thus, Our Goals are:
1. To trace which specific Amerind haplotypes eventually populated South America and the Caribbean
2. To trace their tracks back to the geographic area from which they originated
3. To find deep ancestral relationships
4. To establish a database of all Amerind/Native American mtDNA haplotypes
5. Finally, to possibly direct our genealogy research efforts to otherwise unsuspected geographic areas.
Only Kit ID and haplotype sequences will be shown. Should you wish to contact a particular individual, please contact the administrator with the kit ID with whom you match. Please, we ask that the project members add their maternal line gedcom to their FTDNA personal page. Maternal surnames usually change generation to generation. If you wish the surname for your most ancient maternal ancestor posted in the surname list, please send me an e-mail. For the time being we will use this page as a repository for your Haplotype sequences. N This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Commercial use is not allowed. The information is free for personal users and researchers, attribution is required on derivative works and a share-alike license applies. You can click on the image or the link for more information. There may be errors in this work. You should do your own research and should not rely on the correctness of information here.