Biotech Updates

Study Confirms that Native Americans Descended From A Single Ancestral Group

April 27, 2016

Researchers have long been using genetic data to debate whether ancestors of Native Americans emigrated to the New World in one wave or successive waves, or from one ancestral Asian population or a number of different populations.

Now, after comparing DNA samples from modern-day Native American and Eurasian groups, an international team of scientists says the new evidence supports the single ancestral population theory. The work provides strong evidence that, Native Americans are more closely related to each other than to any other existing Asian populations.

Earlier studies found a unique variant, an allele, of a genetic marker in the DNA of modern-day Native American people. Dubbed the "9-repeat allele", the variant occurred in all of the 41 populations that they sampled. Yet this allele was absent in all 54 of the Eurasian, African, and Oceanian groups the team sampled.

For more on the study, read the article from UCDavis.