The discovery of a roughly 12,000-year-old human skeleton lends weight to the theory that Native Americans descended from Siberian migrants, rather than from people in a later migration.
Ancient American skulls look different from those of modern Native Americans, leading some to think that Native American ancestors arrived after humans first crossed the land bridge between Siberia and North America some 26,000 to 18,000 years ago. James Chatters of Applied Paleoscience in Bothell, Washington, and his co-workers studied a near-intact skeleton of a teenage girl found in an underwater cave in Mexico (pictured). Analysis of the bones revealed features similar to those of other ancient Americans. However, DNA extracted from a tooth carried a genetic signature that occurs only in Native Americans.
The results suggest that evolution on American soil led to the differences between ancient and Native Americans.
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Siberian origin for Native Americans. Nature 509, 403 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/509403d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/509403d
