Native Americans Descended From a Single Ancestral Group, DNA Study Confirms

This is interesting. Native Americans Descended From a Single Ancestral Group, DNA Study Confirms April 28, 2009 For two decades, researchers have been using a growing volume of 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 painstakingly comparing DNA samples from people in dozens of modern-day Native American and Eurasian groups, an international team of scientists thinks it can put the matter to rest: Virtually without exception the new evidence supports the single ancestral population theory. “Our work provides strong evidence that, in general [in general? What does THAT mean?], Native Americans are more closely related to each other than to any other existing Asian populations, except those that live at the very edge of the Bering Strait,” said Kari Britt Schroeder, a lecturer at the University of California, Davis, and the first author on the paper describing the study. “While earlier studies have already supported this conclusion, what’s different about our work is that it provides the first solid data that simply cannot be reconciled with multiple ancestral populations,” said Schroeder, who was a Ph.D. student in anthropology at the university when she did the research. The study is published in the May issue of the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. Rest of article.

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Are the authors of this DNA study saying that the archaeologists who support much older evidence of human occupation in North and South America are full of baloney? There is a lot of archaeological evidence pointing to MUCH older origins for humans in North and South America than a Bering Strait crossing supports. Who's right? The archaeologists? Was man here as far back as 50,000 years ago, 30,000 years ago or 14,000 years ago? Archaeologists claim evidence of human occupation for each of these dates - and dates in-between. For sake of argument, are all of the artifacts identified as Clovis, a particular style of artifact and date-range well-established and generally accepted in the archaeological community as correct, WRONG by 3,000 or more years? Or are the DNA scientists correct, pointing to a single population cross Bering Strait 11,000-10,000 years ago as being the ONLY ancestors of ALL Indian populations in North, Central and South America? Did absolutely everyone who arrived on the shores of North, Central and South America before those who crossed the Bering Strait die out, leaving absolutely no trace of their DNA in today's Indian populations? How else can the archaeological evidence be explained? Are ALL of the archaeologists and ALL of their accumulated evidence wrong? If archaeological evidence supports the existence of settlers in North and South America that predate DNA evidence for the ancestors of the current Native Americans, then aren't the descendants of those earlier deceased original settlers the REAL heirs to claims for rights to North, Central and South American real estate, etc. etc.? And would not the claims of the heirs of those earlier settlers trump the claims asserted by present Native American tribes claiming sovereignty and property rights, etc. etc. in North, Central and South America? If DNA evidence conclusively establishes that today's Native Americans became the dominant aborginal culture - rather like Europeans became the dominate culture during much later migrations to the New World, how can today's Indian tribes, aboriginals, First Nations, whatever they label themselves, claim special privilege when the DNA evidence shows, against the archaeological evidence, that when they arrived they MUST have wiped out all earlier settlers? Under common law, which the United States follows, wouldn't those inheritance rights pass to the ancestors of the first settlers who arrived on those shores? And just who were those first settlers? Some say they were Europeans (on the east coast); on the west coast, some say they were possibly of the Jomon culture, from Japan. Given the current state of archaeological evidence, and if this latest study of DNA evidence is correct, today's Native Americans have no right to say they were here first. It's clear they were not here first. What remains to be determined is just who was here first. Will it end up that Japan - or France - or Spain - files a claim to large chunks of the United States? Well, you can see what a can of worms this might open up. So, DNA people, before stating with such certainty that this is exactly what happened and there are no other probable explanations, my suggestion is that you take a look at the archaeological evidence compiled to date, and then wait for more sophisticated techniques of genetic analysis to be developed and view your evidence against those techniques and the entirety of the rest of the existing evidence, before you says this is the absolute truth and this is what happened.