![]() ![]() ![]() The new study posits two new possibilities for how the separation could have happened. But since humans in North America are not reliably documented before 14,600 years ago, how and where these two groups could have been separated long enough to become genetically distinct is still unclear. The girl’s genome also shows that the Beringians became genetically distinct from all other Native Americans around 20,000 years ago. That means that somewhere along the way, either in eastern Asia or in Beringia itself, a group of people became isolated from other east Asians for about 10,000 years, long enough to become a unique strain of humanity. The genetic analysis points towards a divergence of all ancient Native Americans from a single east Asian source population somewhere between 36,000 to 25,000 years ago-well before humans crossed into Beringia, an area that includes the land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska at the end of the last ice age. How did they do it? How did they change? We now have examples of two genetic groups of people who were adapting to this very harsh landscape.” “Now we know they were here for many thousands of years, and that they were really successful. “We didn’t know this population even existed,” Potter says. In a pitch black, 140-foot-deep underwater cave, three divers make a stunning 13,000-year-old discovery: the oldest complete human skeleton ever found in the Americas. ![]() The discovery of the baby’s bones, named Xach'itee'aanenh T'eede Gaay, or Sunrise Child-Girl in a local Athabascan language, was completely unexpected, as were the genetic results, Potter says. Ben Potter, the University of Alaska Fairbanks archaeologist who unearthed the remains at the Upward River Sun site in 2013, named this new group “Ancient Beringians.” The baby’s DNA showed that she belonged to a population that was genetically separate from other native groups present elsewhere in the New World at the end of the Pleistocene. This new information helps sketch in more details about how, when, and where the ancestors of all Native Americans became a distinct group, and how they may have dispersed into and throughout the New World. But if that isn’t enough, her genes also reveal the existence of a previously unknown population of people who are related to-but older and genetically distinct from- modern Native Americans. Her genome is the oldest-yet complete genetic profile of a New World human. A baby girl who lived some 11,500 years ago survived for just six weeks in the harsh climate of central Alaska, but her brief life is providing a surprising and challenging wealth of information to modern researchers. ![]()
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