NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The remains of an 11,500-year-old Alaska baby shed new light on America's first inhabitants, researchers said on Monday.
The genetic analysis of the girl, as well as other data, shows that she belongs to an ancient ethnic group that was previously unknown.
Scientists say their findings from the DNA study strongly support the idea that one wave of immigrants moved to the American continent from Siberia some 20,000 years ago.
Lower sea level means creating a dry land corridor in the Bering Strait.
But the same passage was flooded with melting ice in the north.
These early immigrants became the ancestors of all the indigenous peoples of the American continent, said Professor Esque Filerslev and his colleagues in the research team.
The team published its findings and genetic assessment in the journal Nature.
Scientists discovered the remains of the infant, who died in her sixth week at the Abuord Sun River archaeological site in 2013.
Scientists refer to the infant remains as "USR1".
"This is the oldest human remains found in Alaska, but it is really interesting that the girl belonged to a human group that we have never seen before," said Vilserleaf, who followed the team at the University of Copenhagen and Cambridge universities.
"It is the closest human group to the current Native Americans, but at the same time they are far from being connected, so it is arguably descended from the oldest indigenous group of America, the first population group to have variations."
"It means that they give us information about the ancestors of all the indigenous people of America," he told the BBC.
Researchers point out that USR1 and its people have been separated from other immigrants and have stayed in Alaska for several thousand years.
But other migrant groups moved south away from the ice.
It originated from the branch that eventually moved southward into the two genetic groups known to be indigenous to America.
"Before the girl's genome, we had only the indigenous people of America in ancient times and the ancient inhabitants of Siberia, and to try to figure out the relationship between them and the period of convergence of time we now have a person who is a group between the two, and this opens a lot of doors to answer the basic questions."
Thank you for reading this, and i hope you enjoyed it.
