Genetic Link Between Native Americans and Europeans

Well of course there is, duh.  We all come from the same stock ultimately.

From Science Daily

Native Americans and Northern Europeans More Closely Related Than Previously Thought

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2012) — Using genetic analyses, scientists have discovered that Northern European populations -- including British, Scandinavians, French, and some Eastern Europeans -- descend from a mixture of two very different ancestral populations, and one of these populations is related to Native Americans. This discovery helps fill gaps in scientific understanding of both Native American and Northern European ancestry, while providing an explanation for some genetic similarities among what would otherwise seem to be very divergent groups.

This research was published in the November 2012 issue of the Genetics Society of America's journal Genetics.

According to Nick Patterson, first author of the report, "There is a genetic link between the paleolithic population of Europe and modern Native Americans. The evidence is that the population that crossed the Bering Strait from Siberia into the Americas more than 15,000 years ago was likely related to the ancient population of Europe."

To make this discovery, Patterson worked with Harvard Medical School Professor of Genetics David Reich and other colleagues to study DNA diversity, and found that one of these ancestral populations was the first farming population of Europe, whose DNA lives on today in relatively unmixed form in Sardinians and the people of the Basque Country, and in at least the Druze population in the Middle East. The other ancestral population is likely to have been the initial hunter-gathering population of Europe. These two populations were very different when they met. Today the hunter-gathering ancestral population of Europe appears to have its closest affinity to people in far Northeastern Siberia and Native Americans.

The statistical tools for analyzing population mixture were developed by Patterson and presented in a systematic way in the report. These tools are the same ones used in previous discoveries showing that Indian populations are admixed between two highly diverged ancestral populations and showing that Neanderthals contributed one to four percent of the ancestry of present-day Europeans. In addition, the paper releases a major new dataset that characterizes genetic diversity in 934 samples from 53 diverse worldwide populations.

"The human genome holds numerous secrets. Not only does it unlock important clues to cure human disease, it also reveal clues to our prehistoric past," said Mark Johnston, Editor-in-Chief of the journal GENETICS. "This relationship between humans separated by the Atlantic Ocean reveals surprising features of the migration patterns of our ancestors, and reinforces the truth that all humans are closely related."

Indian Tribe Wins Right to Limit Use of DNA

I'm not sure how I feel about this case.  I see the merits of the arguments on both sides.

From The New York Times
Indian Tribe Wins Fight to Limit Research of Its DNA
By AMY HARMON
Published: April 21, 2010

SUPAI, Ariz. — Seven years ago, the Havasupai Indians, who live amid the turquoise waterfalls and red cliffs miles deep in the Grand Canyon, issued a “banishment order” to keep Arizona State University employees from setting foot on their reservation — an ancient punishment for what they regarded as a genetic-era betrayal.

Members of the tiny, isolated tribe had given DNA samples to university researchers starting in 1990, in the hope that they might provide genetic clues to the tribe’s devastating rate of diabetes. But they learned that their blood samples had been used to study many other things, including mental illness and theories of the tribe’s geographical origins that contradict their traditional stories.

. . . .

But genetics experts and civil rights advocates say it may also fuel a growing debate over researchers’ responsibility to communicate the range of personal information that can be gleaned from DNA at a time when it is being collected on an ever-greater scale for research and routine medical care.

. . . .

Researchers and institutions that receive federal funds are required to receive “informed consent” from subjects, ensuring that they understand the risks and benefits before they participate. But such protections were designed primarily for research that carried physical risks, like experimental drug trials or surgery. When it comes to mining DNA, the rules — and the risks — are murkier.

Is it necessary, for instance, to ask someone who has donated DNA for research on heart disease if that DNA can be used for Alzheimer’s or addiction research?

Many scientists say no, arguing that the potential benefit from unencumbered biomedical research trumps the value of individual control.

“Everyone wants to be open and transparent,” said Dr. David Karp, an associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, who has studied informed consent for DNA research. “The question is, how far do you have to go? Do you have to create some massive database of people’s wishes for their DNA specimens?”

. . . .

African Slaves of American Indians

An Ancestry of African-Native Americans
Using government documents, author Angela Walton-Raji traced her ancestors to the slaves owned by American Indians
By Katy-June Friesen
Smithsonian.com
February 17, 2010

Angela Walton-Raji has been researching African-Native American genealogy for nearly 20 years and is the author of the book Black Indian Genealogy Research: African-American Ancestors Among the Five Civilized Tribes. She recently presented a series of genealogy workshops at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with the exhibit IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas. Walton-Raji’s ancestors are Freedmen, African-Americans who were slaves of the Five Civilized Tribes – the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole Nations – in Indian Territory, which became Oklahoma in 1907. The Cherokee freed their slaves in 1863, and after the Civil War, the other tribes did the same. All but the Chickasaw eventually granted Freedmen full citizenship in their tribe. In preparation for Oklahoma statehood, the U.S. Congress created the Dawes Commission, which was charged with dissolving collective tribal land ownership and allotting land to individual tribal members. Thousands of Freedmen came before the commission to prove their tribal membership and their right to a share of land. I spoke with Walton-Raji about her research.

Rest of article.

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Who really has clean hands when it comes to herstory?  Not many.

Squirrel Archaeologists (I'm Not Making This Up!)

You just have to read this, it's sooo funny - and just like the Goddess' sense of humor...

Jul 13, 2007 6:30 am US/Pacific

Squirrels Unearth Ancient Artifact In Roseville
Dennis Shanahan Reporting

(CBS13) ROSEVILLE

An amazing discovery has been unearthed in Placer County. Amazing because of its historical significance....and amazing because of how it was found. Archaeologists did not carefully unearth the 8,000 to 10,000 year old artifact, but it appears some curious squirrels dug it up.Now, folks at the Maidu Indian Interpretive Center are trying to preserve what the squirrels unearthed. The center allows people to learn how Native Americans lived thousands of years ago. And it was here that the squirrels made their find in what could be called an ancient compost pile.

"You can see where little tiny flakes have been knocked off to sharpen this or to give it a certain shape." explained Cultural Interpreter Rick Adams who stumbled upon the unearthed artifact along the Maidu Nature Trail.

It's a carefully carved tool or ceremonial object. Experts say it appears to be partially volcanic and may have originated in the Rancho Murietta area about 20 miles from where it was discovered."We only find what the squirrels are giving us right now. And that's Okay. We don't want to dig." said Park Specialist Chuck Kritzon.

While the officials running the Maidu Center know there are probably more artifacts in the park, it is illegal for humans to dig them up on the protected land.

(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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Because this area is reserved as a "sacred" space for the local Native Americans, archaeological research within it's confines is prohibited. That sucks. The artifact dug up by the archaeologist squirrel(s) is exempt from federal law which protects this site because squirrels aren't human (don't tell them that, though, we don't want to trigger any traumatic stress syndrome and have the Confederated Squirrels of America sue the United States Government...) - and therefore, the artifact they uncovered is available for study by local experts. That's how come we know, for instance, the object is between 8,000 and 10,000 years old.

Given the ongoing turmoil and controversy regarding the subject of when the Americas were settled and by whom and from where, an artifact that is possibly 10,000 years old seems rather significant to me, particularly given it's location. Roseville is to the northwest of Sacramento, California, so the inhabitors of the sacred NA site might have originally arrived either by foot from the north (the "across the Bering Strait" theory) or by water (the "ocean-going" theory).

We need more cross-disciplinary studies on this subject, but will we get them? And then there is the whole separate issue of "sacred ancestral remains, etc. etc." that prohibit excavation and study from taking place.

Well, I, for one, sure hope those squirrels keep on digging.