By Anna LeMind
The suppression of the Native Americans and the decimation of their culture is a black page in the history of the United States. The discrimination and injustices towards this ancient race, which had lived on the American continent long before the European conquerors came to this land, are still present to this day despite the efforts of different groups and organizations trying to restore justice.
The destruction of their culture is one of the most shameful aspects of our history, the extent of the damage that was done is still being down-played and denied entry into textbooks and history-lessons to this day.
The origin and history of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas have been studied for years by researchers from different countries, and a recent DNA study showed that the genealogy of the western aboriginals is one of the most unique in the world.
The question of whether Native Americans are from a single Asian population or from a number of different populations has been a subject of research for decades. Now, having compared the DNA samples from people of modern Native American and Eurasian groups, an international team of researchers agreed upon the validity of the single ancestral population theory.
The study follows up on earlier research that found a unique variant of a genetic marker in the DNA of modern descendants of Native Americans. “While earlier studies have already supported this conclusion, what’s different about our work is that it provides the first solid data that simply cannot be reconciled with multiple ancestral populations,” said Kari Britt Schroeder of the University of California, one of the authors of the study.
As a result of the previous research, the so-called “9-repeat allele” (or variant) was found in all of the 41 Native American and Asian (from the western side of the Bering Strait) populations that were sampled. At the same time, the allele was absent in all 54 of the Eurasian, African and Oceanian groups that were also sampled in the study.
The researchers supposed that the distribution of the allele was due to the fact that all these ethnic groups (modern Native Americans, Greenlanders and western Beringians) derived from a common founder population, which had been isolated from the rest of the Asian continent thousands of years prior to their migration to the Americas.
This explanation was persuasive enough; however, there was no strong evidence to support it. There were two other plausible versions to explain the distribution of the 9-repeat allele among the modern descendants of Native Americans.
If the 9-repeat allele had originated as a multiple mutation, its presence in the Americas would not suggest common ancestry. Thus, if there had been more than one ancestral founder population and the 9-repeat allele had been present only in one of them, it could possibly have passed to the other ethnic groups and spread among them. If there also had been a second, beneficial allele located very close to the 9-repeat allele, it would certainly have been carried into new populations. At the same time, long stretches of DNA surrounding the 9-repeat allele would be carried along with the beneficial allele due to the mechanisms of natural selection.
In order to check the validity of this hypothesis, researchers led by Noah Rosenberg of the University of Michigan analyzed DNA samples from people from Asian, Native American, Greenlandic and two western Beringian populations, and found that all the samples with the 9-repeat allele had a distinct pattern of base pairs in short stretches of DNA.
As Schroeder noted, “If natural selection had promoted the spread of a neighboring advantageous allele, we would expect to see longer stretches of DNA than this with a similarly distinct pattern. And we would also have expected to see the pattern in a high frequency even among people who do not carry the 9-repeat allele. So we can now consider the positive selection possibility unlikely.”
These findings also excluded the multiple mutations theory, because in this case there would have been myriad DNA patterns surrounding the 9-repeat allele.
“Our work provides strong evidence that, in general, Native Americans are more closely related to each other than to any other existing Asian populations, except those that live at the very edge of the Bering Strait,” concluded Schroeder.
The results of the study were published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.
About the Author: Anna LeMind is the owner and lead editor of the website Learning-mind.com, and a staff writer for The Mind Unleashed, where this article was originally featured.
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/08/13/dna-analysis-shows-native-american-genealogy-one-unique-world/
Comments
Yes, alcohol has totally poisoned the NA's I'm sad to say and once addicted to it it's nearly impossible to kick.
I do find that interesting, Phylos. Many of the NA's in the lower 48 also believe they are the original people and refer to themselves as "The People."
Interestingly, it could be the diet of rich seafood, but it seemed to me that the coastal Tribes that I was fortunate enough to have contact and some good times with were healthier and happier than the inland peoples. They all, including other NA from other states have a metabolism that is severely affected by alcoholic drink. Unlike most European types, they didn't have a culture with thousands of years of beer-drinking under their belt to build up a little better tolerance so they are really devastated by alcohol. They still drink it, though, unfortunately for them. Another charming "gift" from the white man.
In Alaska, to the best of my understanding, the largest NA tribe are the Athabascans. The live inland, where tribes with other names (Haida, Tlingit, Aleuit, and others I am unable to recall offfhand) are primarily coastal and islandic. The Atahbascans consider themselves to be the original tribe from which all tribes throughout North America descended. That includes the tribes that populated the "lower 48" states. Thought you might find this interesting.
Wonderful post Avatar. This article specifically referred to "western" aboriginals. My ancestory stems for east coast indians. We've been mixing it up with europeans long before the first plains or sw indians ever laid eyes on one. We began intermarrying when the vikings and others first began plundering the east coast of the u.s. part of the reason so many east coast indians look white is because of this l-o-n-g history of intermarriage. then, when the first european settlers made their way to the east coast, the journey was long and dangerous and very few women came with them. if those men wanted to have famlies, their only choice were native women.
Beautiful, Hellen!
My great great great pap was actually a chief my cousin has pictures next time i see her i am going to get me copies. yea they were hated but that didnt stop them from marrying and procreating or whatever other horrible deeds. there is more of the cherokee in me than anything else
Phylos...what a well written, descriptive and interesting experience. I felt like I was there with you. There has been a lot of speculation as to who the NA's are and where they came from so I found the information in this blog very interesting.
Thank you for sharing a part of your very interesting life.
Beautiful image, Hellen. I'm so glad you read this blog...I thought you might find it interesting. :)
Back in the 90's when I spent a lot of time in Alaska I was working out of Kodiak Island and when not at sea, camping out on Afognak Island, a small island connected to the main island by a high bridge over the main channel leading to the ports of the main city. It was a beautiful, magical place with huge tall trees over a fairly clear, mossy forest floor, with incredible views and lots of open space under the tall canopy. Wild ponies lived on Afognak and hippy-types working the canneries and fishing boats were scattered around the little island. One day when things were slow workwise, I was exploring and I came across a guy who was a descendant of Asians from across the Bering Straight. He was an American citizen and had been born and educated in Alaska and we had a pleasant conversation, traded beers and smoke. We both thought that it was remarkable that we were enjoying one another's company and both spoke the same language even though I represented a geneology primarily from Northern Europe and he represented geneology from Asia.
We had traveled halfway around the world (or, I should say, our forefathers and foremothers had) and met by synchronistic design on a beautiful day on a beautiful Island just to have a conversation and share our stories and share our smoke. There was something magical about that whole day that we both recognized. Two humans meeting in peace and sharing understanding. Never saw the guy again as I was busy for the rest of the summer and went back South in the fall.
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