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Genetic Linkage

Were There Two Routes into North America? Genetics Meets Archaeology

Popular accounts of the peopling of North America paint a picture of a lone long-ago trek across the Bering Land Bridge and then south along the Pacific coast, a view based largely on DNA evidence. But other clues point to people also traversing “ice-free corridors” that emerged from melting glaciers like terrestrial tentacles.

A new paper in Science Advances reviews the evidence for more than one way into North America. It concludes that people followed at least two routes, coastal and interior, and that the view over the land bridge “commonly disseminated in the popular press is a prematurely narrow interpretation of current evidence.” The journal held a news conference with three of the investigators.

"We’ve seen conflicting narratives about the timing and the nature of the peopling of the Americas. We wanted to evaluate this claim and provide a framework to discuss the process – not based on speculation but on a critical review of current evidence. Rather than confusion, there is growing congruence of the archeological, paleoecological, and genetic records," said co-author and archaeologist Ben Potter, professor of anthropology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

More philosophically, the report beautifully illustrates scientific inquiry, operating in a blind-man-and-the-elephant sort of way, revealing not alternate facts, but multiple solutions to a shared challenge – a search for habitable land. It also touches on ways to avoid so-called in
"helicopter research,"
in which wealthy nations send expeditions to probe the health and lives of poorer people, without involving them in the work.

To continue reading go to Genetic Literacy Project, where this post first appeared. Read More 
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