Genetic roots of the first Americans

Abstract

The whole-genome sequence of a human associated with the earliest widespread culture in North America confirms the Asian ancestry of the Clovis people and their relatedness to present-day Native Americans. See Letter p.225 The Clovis complex is an archaeological culture distributed widely in North America. Dating to around 13,000 years ago it is characterized by distinct stone tools including a spear blade known as the Clovis point. Just who made these tools has been a subject of much speculation based on sparse information. There is now more to go on with the publication of the first genome sequence of an ancient North American individual. The genome is that of a male infant (Anzick-1) from the Clovis burial at the Anzick site in Montana. The partial skeleton, buried about 12,600 years ago, was found in association with scores of ochre-painted stone tools. Its genome is from a population from which contemporary Native Americans are descended and is more closely related to all indigenous American populations than to any others. These findings refute the hypothesis that the Clovis people migrated from Europe, are consistent with a human occupation of the Americas a few thousand years before Clovis, and suggest that contemporary Native Americans are descendants of the first people to settle successfully in the Americas.