DNA from fossils unearthed in southern China suggests Native Americans had East Asian roots
DNA from fossils unearthed in southern China dating back 14,000 years suggest that Native Americans had East Asian roots
- Fossils found in China suggest Native Americans may have genetic roots in East Asia
- The data will help us understand ‘how humans change their physical appearance by adapting to local environments over time,’ said study co-author Bing Su.
DNA from ancient fossils in southern China has revealed that Native Americans may have roots in East Asia.
Scientists compared the genetic information of Late Pleistocene-era fossils with the genetic information of humans around the world.
They found that the bones belonged to someone closely related to the ancestors of Native Americans in East Asia.
Archaeologists have successfully sequenced the fossil genome.
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Researchers have successfully sequenced the genome of a fossil from the Late Pleistocene for the first time. The image above is a lateral view of the excavated skull from the Red Deer Cave
‘Ancient DNA techniques are very powerful tools,’ said Bing Su, a co-author of the study working at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
‘This tells us with considerable certainty that the Red Deer Cave people were modern humans, not an ancient species, such as Neanderthals or Denisovans, despite their unusual morphological features.’
They propose that some southern East Asians traveled north along the coast of present-day China through Japan and eventually reached Siberia.
‘This tells us with certainty that the Red Deer Cave people were modern humans, not an ancient species, such as Neanderthals or Denisovans, despite their unusual morphological features,’ said Bing Su, co-author of the study. In the photo is a reproduced portrait of the Red Deer Cave People or Mengziren
It is believed that they later crossed the Bering Strait between Asia and North America to be the first to arrive in the New World.
The work that produced these insights began more than thirty years ago.
At that time, a group of archaeologists in China discovered a large set of bones in Maludong, or Red Deer Cave, in Yunnan Province, southern China.
Archaeologists have used carbon dating – which uses the relative proportions of the carbon-12 and carbon-14 isotopes to determine the age of organic matter – to show that the fossils date back to the Late Pleistocene about 14,000 years ago.
The discovery stems from work that began decades ago when archaeologists unearthed a large set of bones in Maludong, or the Red Deer Cave, as pictured above.
This is the period of time when modern humans have migrated to many parts of the world.
Researchers found a hominin skull cap from a cave that has characteristics of both modern and ancient humans.
For example, its skull was similar to that of a Neanderthal, and its brain appeared to be smaller than that of modern humans.
As a result, some anthropologists think the skull may belong to an unknown ancient human species that lived until recently or a hybrid population of ancient and modern humans.
These findings contribute to our understanding of the rich genetic diversity of hominins living at that time in southern East Asia.
Su said that it shows that early humans who first arrived in east Asia originally settled in the south before some of them moved north.
“This is important evidence for understanding early human migration,” he explained.
Such data will not only help us paint a more complete picture of how our ancestors migrated, but also contain important information about how humans changed their physical appearance by adapting to local environments over time, such as variations in skin color in response to changes in color. skin. sun exposure,’ said Su.
The team’s findings were published July 14 in the journal Current Biology.
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