Re: First Americans Arrived Recently, Settled Pacific Coast, DNA Study Says

On Feb 11, 12:08 pm, "Uwe Müller" <uwemuel...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Jack Linthicum" <jacklinthi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> schrieb im Newsbeitragnews:1171209545.500210.272980@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



snip >

By measuring the rate of mutation, Kemp found that so-called molecular
evolution-the process by which genetic material changes over time-had
taken place two to four times faster than researchers believed mtDNA
could evolve.

That, Kemp said, suggests people entered the Americas within the last
15,000 years, because the DNA has evolved too fast for the arrival to
have occurred any earlier.
snip >

The first paragraph boils down to something like: all dates arrived at via
genetic dating could be divided by 2 or even 4. That would have enormous
consequences for the population/repopulation-after-the-ice-age-scenarios in
Europe.

The second paragraph seems to imply some doubts about the dating. If the
dating is correct, an age of 10300 for the sample, no method of dating
given, than the mutation rate should have to be roughly trebled. If the
mutation rate is trebled, the amount of genetic change apparent in modern
descendants would argue against an aearlier arrival than ca. 15000.

If the dating of the tooth was not correct, the mutation rate may remain
unchanged, or could be changed according to personal preferences. There
would be no argument against earlier arrivals.

So everything rests on one tooth, and how it was dated. Does anyone know how
it was done? A carbon 14 dating could be easily off because of the influence
of marine carbon, as they were said to exploit coastal ressources. Was it
dated by the date of the layer of extraction?

have fun

Uwe Mueller

I can't make a flat statement about the 10,300 ypb date but Lost World
p. 178-9 has a sentence "Eventually the 9800 year date had to be
modified (for the mandible and pelvis) ...the bone artfact that had
first caught Tim Heaton's attention (mandible) turned out to be 10,300
years old." Page 211 says they had a labratory analysis in hand.
Carbon 12, 13 and 14 relative proportions seem to be the method used.
Later, page 252, Tom Stafford , is cited as the dater of the bones.
Collegen is collected and subjected to particle bombardment.

Human remains found On Your Knees Cave ALASKA 9,818 B.P.
http://www.bluecorncomics.com/kennwck3.htm

Original article seems to have been in Nature

"Caveman DNA hints at map of migration : Nature
The DNA was extracted from teeth on a mandible found in 1996 in On
Your Knees Cave, named by the explorer who first crawled inside in
1993. Carbon dating in ..".
www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7048/full/436162b.html - Similar
pages

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/114082833/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

Research Article
Genetic analysis of early holocene skeletal remains from Alaska and
its implications for the settlement of the Americas
Brian M. Kemp 1 *, Ripan S. Malhi 2, John McDonough 1, Deborah A.
Bolnick 3, Jason A. Eshleman 4 5, Olga Rickards 6, Cristina Martinez-
Labarga 6, John R. Johnson 7, Joseph G. Lorenz 8, E. James Dixon 9,
Terence E. Fifield 10, Timothy H. Heaton 11, Rosita Worl 12, David
Glenn Smith 5
1Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
37235-7703
2Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign,
Urbana, IL 61801
3Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
78712
4Trace Genetics, Inc., A DNAPrint Genomics Company, 4655 Meade Street,
Richmond, CA 94804
5Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616
6Department of Biology, Centre of Molecular Anthropology for Ancient
DNA Studies, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy
7Department of Anthropology, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History,
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
8Laboratory for Molecular Biology, Coriell Institute for Medical
Research, Camden, NJ 08103
9Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), University of
Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309
10Prince of Wales Island Districts, Tongass National Forest, Craig, AK
99921
11Department of Earth Science/Physics, University of South Dakota,
Vermillion, SD 57069
12Sealaska Heritage Institute, One Sealaska Plaza, Suite 400, Juneau,
AK 99801
email: Brian M. Kemp (brian.m.kemp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx)

*Correspondence to Brian M. Kemp, Department of Anthropology,
Vanderbilt University, VU Station B #356050, Nashville, TN 37235-6050,
USA
Deceased.

Funded by:
Office of Polar Programs
The National Science Foundation
The United States Forest Service
Wenner Gren Grant

Keywords
mitochondrial DNA · ancient DNA · molecular clock · phylogenetic
dispersion · Y-chromosome

Abstract
Mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA were analyzed from 10,300-year-old
human remains excavated from On Your Knees Cave on Prince of Wales
Island, Alaska (Site 49-PET-408). This individual's mitochondrial DNA
(mtDNA) represents the founder haplotype of an additional
subhaplogroup of haplogroup D that was brought to the Americas,
demonstrating that widely held assumptions about the genetic
composition of the earliest Americans are incorrect. The amount of
diversity that has accumulated in the subhaplogroup over the past
10,300 years suggests that previous calibrations of the mtDNA clock
may have underestimated the rate of molecular evolution. If
substantiated, the dates of events based on these previous estimates
are too old, which may explain the discordance between inferences
based on genetic and archaeological evidence regarding the timing of
the settlement of the Americas. In addition, this individual's Y-
chromosome belongs to haplogroup Q-M3*, placing a minimum date of
10,300 years ago for the emergence of this haplogroup. Am J Phys
Anthropol, 2007. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Received: 25 March 2006; Accepted: 7 November 2006

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/science/20050824-9999-lz1c24tooth.html

Dental DNA reveals our ancient roots
By Leigh Fenly
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

August 24, 2005


JAMES DIXON
/ University of Colorado, Boulder
A cast of the human jaw found in On Your Knees Cave on Prince of Wales
Island in southeastern Alaska. UC Davis researchers have sequenced DNA
from two of the teeth - - the oldest ever extracted from ancient
American remains

* Politics plagued bones of Kennewick Man

ASHLAND, Ore. - Paleontologist Timothy Heaton was used to finding
35,000-year-old remains of brown bear, black bear, hoary marmot and
antelope in On Your Knees Cave, a tight opening tucked in the dense
hemlocks of Alaska's vast Tongass National Forest. But on the last day
of excavation in 1996, as Heaton was filling a final bag of sediment,
he came upon something quite different.

A lower jaw. A pelvic bone. Obsidian worked into a spear point.

Unmistakable evidence of an ancient human.

Since, the effort to tease clues from the 10,300-year-old remains -
the oldest ever found in Alaska or Canada - has involved myriad
research laboratories, most recently the Molecular Anthropology Lab at
UC Davis.

A tooth from On Your Knees Cave Man - wrapped in cotton and shipped
via Federal Express - arrived there in 2003. Brian Kemp, a Ph.D.
candidate, removed the tooth's crown and hammered out a quarter-gram
portion of root. He subjected it to bleach, a decalcifying chemical
and a protein-devouring enzyme. With a silica extraction, he got the
tooth's DNA to jump out of the solution.

With the same process forensic scientists use to link DNA to
criminals, Kemp tricked the purified DNA into copying itself millions
of times. The resulting sequences - the oldest DNA ever extracted from
human remains in the Americas - revealed some of the old man's
secrets.

From differences in the genetic sequences, Kemp is now able to argue
that the cave man's DNA represents a new ancient lineage in North
America. Comparing that DNA to modern-day sequences, he also is
suggesting changes to some scientists' estimates of the time of the
first migrations to the New World.

<more, mostly anecdotal>

.

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