Abstract
A review was made in relation to the molecular variability present in North, Central, and South American Indian populations. It involved results from ancient DNA, mitochondrial DNA in extant populations, HLA and other autosomal markers, X and Y chromosome variation, as well as data from parasitic viruses which could show coevolutionary changes. The questions considered were their origin, ways in which the early colonization of the continent took place, types and levels of the variability which developed, peculiarities of the Amerindian evolutionary processes, and eventual genetic heterogeneity which evolved in different geographical areas. Although much information is already available, it is highly heterogeneous in relation to populations and types of genetic systems investigated. Unfortunately, the present trend of favoring essentially applied research suggest that the situation will not basically improve in the future.
Highlights
Human population genetics has a respectable past of almost 100 years; its root can be placed in the classical papers of Hardy and Weinberg, both published in 1908
In the 1940s and 1950s, the development of the synthetic theory of organic evolution successfully merged genetics with evolutionary biology, establishing the main factors which can be responsible for the intra and interpopulation genetic variability
Researchers interested in human polymorphic genetic markers expressed in blood started to compile and evaluate a vast amount of data at the world level, examples of which are the books by Mourant (1954), Mourant et al (1958, 1976), Tills et al (1983)
Summary
Human population genetics has a respectable past of almost 100 years; its root can be placed in the classical papers of Hardy and Weinberg, both published in 1908. Amerindians had been fairly well studied during all this period, and relatively recent reviews of their genetic variability and its evolutionary implications were performed by Salzano and CallegariJacques (1988) and Crawford (1998). These last studies, had been conducted when the amount of data at the molecular level was still scarce. I decided to make a new global evaluation considering the variability inAmerindians that could be disclosed at this level The results of this endeavor are presented below.
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