Alexandria, VA - In 2013, researchers uncovered the graves of two infants laid to rest about 11,500 years ago outside of what is now Fairbanks, Alaska. Researchers understood that these graves represented some of the earliest human migrants to North America, but were they more closely related to their Asian ancestors, or the modern-day residents of North and South America? Using mitochondrial DNA analysis of the infants, what could we learn about our own human history?
Humans arrived in North America because massive terrestrial glaciers had lowered sea level so much that a land bridge existed between Asia and North America. But when people migrated, where they stayed and for how long before moving southward is mysterious. Now, because the infants' bodies were well preserved, scientists were able to use genetic analysis to tease out how they relate to modern Americans. Find out what the infants' DNA tells us about early migration patterns in EARTH Magazine: http://bit.ly/1o6yW1X.
EARTH Magazine brings you the most exciting discoveries about our planet and beyond. The April 2016 issue takes readers to space, where scientists have just calculated the mass for the smallest known exoplanet; underground into a study conducted on how an ant colony will handle the heat of Earth's changing climate; and out on the oceans, where scientists are untangling clues about deadly rogue waves. All this and more is available at http://www.earthmagazine.org.
Source: American Geosciences Institute