Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Is This Russian Landscape the Birthplace of Native Americans?
Kazakh eagle-hunters ride through the Altay Mountains.
Photograph by David Edwards, National Geographic
Mountainous region of Siberia gave rise to New World peoples, study says.
Christine Dell'Amore
National Geographic News
Published February 3, 2012
Native Americans originated from a small mountainous region in southern Siberia, new genetic research shows. The work is the most targeted study yet to suggest a genetic "homeland" for North America's indigenous peoples, according to the authors.
New DNA analysis of ethnic groups living in the Altay Mountains (see map) revealed a unique genetic mutation that also occurs in modern-day northern Native Americans.
A possible link between Siberians and Native Americans is an "age-old question" that was first raised by European explorers in the New World, said study leader Theodore Schurr, an anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
That's because some of those early explorers had also been to Asia, and they noticed physical similarities between the two populations.
More: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/01/120203-native-americans-siberia-genes-dna-science/
What do you think the political implications of studies like this potentially are if they are incorporated into school lessons alongside Christopher Columbus etc.?
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
It's not all that different from what we already knew. It just places the ancestral homeland a bit further south and west than was commonly assumed. American history classes usually start with the 'land bridge,' now they will start with a brief comment about Altai before quickly moving on to the bridge. 
Could this be true for some? Possibly, and certainly so for the Arctic and North Pacific Coast tribes like the Inuit who do have a remarkable similarity to the natives of Siberia. But as for most of the other Native Americans......I don't think so, they're just too diverse linguistically. I think we'll find eventually that they came from many places.....look to the west in particular.