Researchers found that a 24,000 -year old body from Siberia is related to both "present-day western Eurasians" and Native Americans.
The finding could help us understand the ancient history of Native Americans and the "general landscape of Eurasia." The Siberian juvenile used in the study was dubbed MA-1, a University of Copenhagen news release reported.
"Representing the oldest anatomically modern human genome reported thus far, the MA-1 individual has provided us with a unique window into the genetic landscape of Siberia some 24,000 years ago," says Dr. Maanasa Raghavan from the Centre for GeoGenetics and one of the lead authors of the study. "Interestingly, the MA-1 individual shows little to no genetic affinity to modern populations from the region from where he originated -- south Siberia."
The genome of MA-1 suggests the Eurasian people were more wide-spread than they are in modern times.
The individual is related to modern-day western Eurasians and Native Americans, but not East Asians; this finding is surprising because East Asians were believed to be related to Native Americans.
The team was able to pinpoint the gene flow event between MA-1 and Native Americans that can account for between 14 and 38 percent of their history.
"The result came as a complete surprise to us. Who would have thought that present-day Native Americans, who we learned in school derive from East Asians, share recent evolutionary history with contemporary western Eurasians? Even more intriguingly, this happened by gene flow from an ancient population that is so far represented only by the MA-1 individual living some 24,000 years ago," Professor Eske Willerslev from the Centre for GeoGenetics who led the study, said.
The study concluded " two distinct Old World populations led to the formation of the First American gene pool: one related to modern-day East Asians, and the other a Siberian Upper Palaeolithic population related to modern-day western Eurasians," the news release reported.
Researchers also looked at another Siberian site and found an individual (which 17,000 years old) from the area also was closely related to Native Americans and western Eurasians but not East Asians.
"Our findings are significant at two levels. First, it shows that Upper Paleolithic Siberians came from a cosmopolitan population of early modern humans that spread out of Africa to Europe and Central and South Asia. Second, Paleoindian skeletons with phenotypic traits atypical of modern-day Native Americans can be explained as having a direct historical connection to Upper Paleolithic Siberia," Professor Kelly Graf from the Center for the Study of the First Americans, said.
