July 24, 2015

Genetic Researchers Find Australian, Andaman Islands and South Pacific Genes in Some Amazon Groups

Researchers have found that some people in the Brazilian Amazon have genetic ties to the people of Australia and the South Pacific. But two different groups came to different conclusions on the results of the research. One group says that there was only one migration into the Americas around 23,000 or more years ago. And that the later South Pacific genes came from later arrivers from the Aleutians through a chain of mixing down the Pacific coast. The other group agrees that the first migrations took place 23,000 or more years ago, but from two groups and not one. This research identified a second group they call Population Y. This group is more closely related to Australian and Andaman Islanders than to the Eurasian descended Native Americans.

Both groups feel that the difference in the findings can eventually be reconciled with further gene studies

The LA Times has the story here;
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-native-american-origins-dna-20150721-story.html

And the NY Times has the story here;
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/science/tracing-routes-to-america-through-ancient-dna.html

Each paper has a few pieces of information that the other does not.

(My note; These genetic studies on the first migrations into the Americas are done by many research groups and often come to similar disagreements about the number of migrations and the dates for them. So this study will not be the last one like it. It is interesting that both groups in this study posit a date some 23,000 years ago for the first migrations into America. This places the first migrations way before Clovis times. So Pre-Clovis entry is bolstered by these two groups research. This also does not eliminate the possible entry of small groups entering before this time frame whose genes may not show up in the present studies. Remember that this study has found groups with genes not found before of South Pacific origin.)

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