FLICKR, NASA GODDARDThe Arctic’s earliest human inhabitants migrated into the region from Siberia approximately 6,000 years ago. These so called Paleo-Eskimo peoples lived in isolation—despite periodic migrations of other populations—before suddenly vanishing 700 years ago, according to a study published last week (August 29) in Science.
This genetic analysis of 169 ancient and present-day humans used museum specimens of bones, teeth, and hair from Alaska, Canada, and Greenland; the researchers, led by Maanasa Raghavan and Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, also sequenced the genomes of modern-day Native American, Inuit, and Aleutian Islander families to enable comparative analyses.
Their results showed that Paleo-Eskimos spread into the Arctic independent of Native American and Inuit migrations. Although it periodically abandoned the area, this Paleo-Eskimo population lived there in near-isolation for almost 4,000 years before disappearing. The team’s analyses also showed that modern-day Inuits are not directly related to these earliest settlers, suggesting that the ancient Paleo-Eskimo lineage did not vanish simply due to interbreeding.
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