North, South American genetics studied

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Nov. 27 (UPI) -- An international team of scientists has found genetic evidence the first humans on both the North and South American continents came from eastern Siberia.

Researchers at U.S., Canadian, British, Central and South American universities studied genetic variations among members of 29 populations of native North, Central and South American people.

Genetic variations at 678 key locations in the DNA of the populations were examined.

The researchers, led by the University of Michigan, said their findings suggest Siberians traveling across the Bering Strait 12,000 years ago gave rise to the peoples of North and South America. That, they noted, is a finding inconsistent with a competing theory that North and South Americans came from many parts of Asia and Polynesia in multiple migrations during tens of thousands of years.

The researchers said they found a unique genetic variant in peoples of both North and South America. That variant has no biological function, and has not been found in genetic studies of people anywhere in the world except eastern Siberia.

The study appears online in the journal PLoS Genetics.