Some good articles with excerpts and links
Scientists say they have traced the ancient migration patterns of the Polynesian people and their Western Pacific ancestors by analyzing the DNA of the rats that rode along with them http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5160080/ To their surprise, however, the researchers found that native Siberians lack one peculiar mutation that appeared in the Amerinds 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. This raises the question of where, if not from Siberia, this mtDNA originated. It turns out, Dr. Wallace says, that this particular mutation pattern is also found in aboriginal populations in Southeast Asia and in the islands of Melanesia and Polynesia. This hints at what may have been "one of the most astounding migrations in human experience," he says. A group of ancient peoples moved out of China into Malaysia where they became sailors and populated the islands of the South Pacific. http://cita.chattanooga.org/mtdna.html The geneticists say there was only one migration of modern humans out of Africa; that it took a southern route to India, Southeast Asia and Australia; and that it consisted of a single band of hunter-gatherers, probably just a few hundred people strong. Because these events occurred in the last Ice Age, when Europe was at first too cold for human habitation, the researchers say, it was populated only later, not directly from Africa but as an offshoot of the southern migration. The people of this offshoot would presumably have trekked back through the lands that are now India and Iran to reach the Near East and Europe. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1402157/posts With a swab of cheek tissue and $100, you may be able to help scientists figure out how humans spread out across the earth. IBM Corp. and the National Geographic Society will announce a project today to collect at least 100,000 DNA samples from people all over the globe to trace the routes of human migration. The five-year project intends to create "the largest and most comprehensive public database of anthropological genetic information," the two groups said. It also is expected to boost Big Blue's profile in the multibillion-dollar life sciences technology market. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/04/13/MNGQIC7FT51.DTL&type=science The path taken out of Africa by early Homo sapiens may have had a scenic ocean view, a new genetic analysis suggests. The results, published today in the journal Science, indicate that our forebears followed a southern route along the coast and into Southeast Asia, instead of a northern route overland through the Middle East as previous theories held. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00035B8E-BB62-1283-BB6283414B7F0000 A coastal migration route is now gaining more acceptance, rather than the older view of small bands moving on foot across the middle of the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska and into the continents. Emerging evidence suggests that people with boats moved along the Pacific coast into Alaska and northwestern Canada and eventually south to Peru and Chile by 12,500 years agoand perhaps much earlier. Archaeological evidence in Australia, Melanesia, and Japan indicate boats were in use as far back as 25,000 to 40,000 years ago. Sea routes would have provided abundant food resources and easier and faster movement than land routes. Many coastal areas were unglaciated at this time, providing opportunities for landfall along the way. Several early sites along the coast of Canada, California, Peru, Ecuador, and Chile date between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago. Many potential coastal sites are now submerged, making investigation difficult. http://www.si.edu/resource/faq/nmnh/origin.htm Dr. Douglas C. Wallace and his colleagues at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta constructed a world female genetic tree based on mitochondrial DNA. Dr. Wallace found that almost all American Indians have mtNDA that belong to lineages he named A, B, C and D. Europeans belong to lineages H through K and T through X. The split between the two main branches in the European tree suggests that modern humans reached Europe 39,000 to 51,000 years ago, Dr. Wallace calculates, a time that corresponds with the archaeological date of at least 35,000 years ago. In Asia the ancestral lineage is known as M, with descendant branches E, F and G. In the Americas are lineages A through D. In Africa there is a single main lineage, known as L, which is divided into three branches. L3, the youngest branch, is common in East Africa and is believed to be the source of both the Asian and European Researchers studied Native Americans from the Navajo, Chamorro and Flathead tribes. They then determined that all three groups possess a unique type of retrovirus gene, JCV, found only in China and Japan (National Academy of Sciences, 1197). Would seem to suggest travel by boat. VIRUS LINKS ANDES WITH JAPAN There is a theory that South America was colonized from Asia thousands of years before any Spaniards set foot in South America. DNA from bone marrow of 1,500 year old mummies found in northern Chile was analyzed. The results show that a virus associated with adult T-cell leukemia was prevalent in native Andeans and in a small section of people from southwest Japan. The study also theorizes that the virus may have originated from paleo-Mongoloids who migrated to Japan and South America more than 10,000 years ago. No doubt that this was an mtDNA PCR study (Nature Medicine, 1999). PEÑON WOMAN A skeleton with a perfectly preserved skull belonged to a 26 year old woman who died in what is now the suburbs of Mexico City. Radio carbon dating has shown that skulls found in Mexico are almost 13,000 years old. The shape of the skulls is key -- the oldest being long and narrow-headed (dolichocephalic), unlike Native American remains. Some of the other skulls found were short and broad (brachycephalic), just like American Indians. This suggests that humans colonized Mexico in two waves and that they may have lived in North America before the American Indians (see Kennewick Man story below as well). Key people involved in Peñon Woman: Dr. Silvia Gonzalez of John Moores University in Liverpool, UK; Robert Hedges of Oxford University. Good site: lineages.http://www.duerinck.com/migrate.html 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. http://www.americanscientist.org/template/Login;jsessionid=baa47lNtD9Pzjr?nextpage=AssetDetail&print=yes&assetid=14727&fulltext=true&message=PageAccessDeniedMessage#23964 The above site has a good haplogroup map of genetic migration to NA To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! 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