Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1xhFqOiaEg

30-01-2012 19:22 Penn Research Finds Genetic Link Between Native Americans, Russian Region Artifacts show that humans were living in North America 15000 years ago; they reached the tip of South America over the next 2000 years. Using techniques akin to DNA fingerprinting, scientists have continued to gather evidence that the majority of current native people of North and South America derive their ancestry from Asia. University of Pennsylvania researcher Theodore Schurr's group focused on two types of DNA - mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down in eggs and traces maternal lines, and the Y chromosome, which is passed down through male lines. The Y chromosome analysis took advantage of non-coding regions, which are not part of genes and which are used in criminal forensics to match suspects to crime scenes. These DNA regions differ from one person to another, Schurr said. The more such quirks people share, the more recently they are likely to have had a common ancestry. Schurr said his group had collected about 1500 DNA samples from Native Americans, as well as 750 from people in the Altai. The researchers also compared DNA from people from other parts of Asia. The scientists can use groups of variations on the Y chromosome to identify specific human male lineages, and variations in mitochondrial DNA to trace female lineages. Male lineages called Q, and a subset of Q called Q-M3, appear widespread in Native Americans and are thought to have come from a founder population. Both also appear ...

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# 1146 Native Americans DNA Linked to Altai from Russia - Video