The longest prehistoric migration of humanity was made by groups from northern Asia that toured, for thousands of years, 20,000 kilometers to Patagonia. A population that in South America was divided into four different lineages (Amazonians, Andean, Amerindians of the Chaco and Patagones).
A large -scale investigation traces human expansion during the late Pleistocene, through the genomic study of more than 1,500 people from 139 ethnic groups in northern Eurasia and America to shed new light on the old migrations that configured the genetic landscape of North and South America.
This data set, which contains more than 50 million high quality genetic variants, was analyzed together with ancient and modern DNA of American native populations.
That migration that reached an uninhabited South America “caused a founding effect among the South American natives, which gave rise to a reduced genetic diversity compared to that of the indigenous populations of northern Eurasia,” says the study published by Science.
The geographical barriers within the subcontinent isolated the indigenous groups, subsequently reducing genetic diversity, according to the team headed by the 100K Genomeasia Consortium of the Technological University of Nanyang of Singapore (NTU).
That long migration would have occupied several generations, who toured roads that are not today, because then the earth masses were different and the ice had bridges on certain portions that made the route possible.
The rebuilt routes offered a detailed image of how the first humans reached the end of the Americas and the findings suggest that this pioneering group exceeded extreme environmental challenges to complete their trip along millennia.
A key fact, according to Science, was that these first emigrants reached the northwestern end of South America, where the current Panama meets Colombia, approximately 14,000 years ago.
Four different indigenous lineages quickly emerged from a common Mesoamerican origin between 13,900 and 10,000 years, indicates the study in which the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina (CONICET) participated.
One of those groups remained in the Amazon basin, while the others moved to the east, to the Dry Chaco region, and south, to the ice fields of Patagonia, navigating the valleys of the Andes mountain range, the highest mountain chain outside Asia, the NTU indicates.
According to the authors, the rapid geographical isolation of these groups probably reduced genetic diversity, especially in HLA genes related to the immune system, which can influence susceptibility to infectious diseases.
The study analyzed the genetic profiles of indigenous populations of Eurasia and South America, which allowed, for the first time, the unexpectedly wide genetic diversity of Asia.
The genetic and archaeological evidence suggest that the American natives diverged from the Northern Easiáticos between 26,800 and 19,300 years, and that groups such as the Inuit, the Koryks and the Luoravetlanos are their closest living relatives.
It also indicates that the greatest diversity of human genomes is found in Asian populations, not in European, “as it has been assumed for a long time due to sampling bias in large -scale genomes sequencing projects, said the main author of the study, Stephan Schuster, scientific director of the Genomeasia100K consortium.
For the researcher, this circumstance remodes the understanding of historical population movements and feels a more solid basis for future research on human evolution.
With EFE information
Follow business information and today in Forbes Mexico
Do you like to inform yourself for Google News? Follow our showcase to have the best stories
