Ancient Human Remains Document Migration From Asia To America
"In Alaska, scientists have uncovered something they say is remarkable: the
remains of two infants dating back more than 11,000 years."
"Their discovery is evidence of the earliest wave of migration into the Americas."
"'It's incredibly rare,' says Ben Potter, an archaeologist at the University of Alaska who is among the researchers on the project, at a site called Upward Sun River in central Alaska. 'We only have a handful of human remains that are this old in the entire Western Hemisphere.' The findings were published Wednesday by the journal Nature."
"The remains were in such good condition that geneticists were able to extract DNA from one of them. They compared the sample with the genes of people from around the world."
"They conclude that the ancestors of these infants started out in East Asia about 35,000 years ago. As they traveled east, they became genetically isolated from other Asians. At some point during the last ice age they crossed a frozen land bridge from Siberia to Alaska called "'Beringia.'"