The Origins of Man
The exact history of how we came to be is one that is still quite unclear and constantly revised. Many cultures around the world hold their own creation stories about the creation of the world and how the people came to be. But we all have one thing in common, the Earth.
This is why the Human Genome Project went underway in 2005 to help map out the genetic trail across the world. What little is known about the map thus far can be found on here on the National Geographic website.
the origins of native americans
But also in a documentary/book that features geneticist and anthropologist Spencer Wells called the Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey. As mentioned, the story was made into a documentary as well, detailing the journey of tracing the trail across the world.
The origins of Native Americans came about in the last few minutes of the film. It suggested that the origins of Native Americans point to Siberia, based on blood analysis.
A new study shows evidence for a different story of the origins of Native Americans
Up to then, that’s all we really knew about the genetic trail of humankind and recently a new study was published on the 21st of this month. This study was published in Nature that suggested a different story for certain groups of people in the Americas.
In the study, the origins of Native Americans, more specifically the ones in South America by the Amazon, may share more traits with the indigenous people of Australia, New Guineans, etc. This interesting note was not seen in other natives from the North or Central Americas.
Of course, such a finding was interesting, surprising and threw off everything that was known thus far from the Genome project. So further and more intensive studies were conducted on the area where the link showed up.
interesting ramifications of study
The results showed that the finding was not a fluke, but also suggested the link may be older than the migration into the Americas. But to gauge which group came first, where from, and other such questions, they need to get a DNA sample from the remains of that group of people.
As you can imagine, there have not been any found as of yet. But since there is a link to Australians, looking at remains from there may be an option as well. All this new research tells us is that perhaps it wasn’t just a one-way stop that the Americas came to be populated.
