Ancient inhabitants of southern China are believed to be related to the ancestors of Native Americans. They migrated into the southern part of East Asia around 40,000 years ago.
Paleobiologists from China have decoded the genome of one of these ancient residents from the southern territory of the country and discovered that this individual is a close relative of the ancestors of modern Native Americans. The scientists’ findings were published in an article in the journal Current Biology.
Until recently, historians believed that the ancestors of modern Native Americans moved into the territory now occupied by the United States (including Alaska) from southern Siberia and Altai around 14,000 to 15,000 years ago in a single wave of migration. Subsequent archaeological discoveries and the decoding of the DNA of Native American ancestors have shown that this is not the case.
Scientists now believe that the ancestors of Native Americans arrived in the New World as a result of at least three or even four waves of migration. These waves of migration occurred at different times and originated from different sources. The nature of these migrations has been explored by geneticists and archaeologists over the past two decades.
The ancestors of modern Native Americans migrated to the territory now occupied by the United States in a wave of migration.
Researchers found that modern southern China is one of these sources. Scientists reached this conclusion after reconstructing the genome of an ancient individual (14,000 years old), whose bones were discovered in the Red Deer Cave in Yunnan Province in 2012.
Ancestry of Ancient Native Americans
The origin of these skeletal remains, according to scientists, remains a topic of much debate among anthropologists. It is still uncertain whether the inhabitants of this cave represent the species Homo sapiens or other hominids.
Chinese researchers were able to extract nuclear DNA fragments and mitochondrial genomes from the skull bones. This allowed them to confirm their human ancestry. Analysis showed that the inhabitants of the Red Deer Cave belong to a group of East Asian residents that no longer exist (the ancestors of modern Indians belong to this population).
“Our analysis of ancient DNA shows that the inhabitants of southern East Asia are characterized by high levels of genetic and morphological diversity, which later migrated north and east,” said Su Bin, a researcher at the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
Notably, this is supported by the presence of similarities between human DNA fragments from the Red Deer Cave and the recovered genomes of ancient Native Americans who lived in Alaska or the southwestern United States around 11,000 to 12,500 years ago. In this respect, the inhabitants of this cave are much closer to Native Americans than other ancient residents in East and Southeast Asia.
For this reason, scientists believe that the ancestors of the residents of the Red Deer Cave migrated into southern East Asia around 40,000 years ago. Approximately 17,000 to 16,000 years ago, some of them began migrating north and east, resulting in their crossing the Bering land bridge and entering North America.
Researchers hope that further searches and studies of remains along the proposed route of Native American ancestors will help confirm this hypothesis. It will also clarify whether these extinct Homo sapiens left their genetic traces in other areas of East Asia, including the islands of Japan.
