The genome of a Late Pleistocene human from a Clovis burial site in western Montana
Open accessAbstract
Clovis, with its distinctive biface, blade and osseous technologies, is the oldest widespread archaeological complex defined in North America, dating from 11,100 to 10,700 (14)C years before present (bp) (13,000 to 12,600 calendar years bp). Nearly 50 years of archaeological research point to the Clovis complex as having developed south of the North American ice sheets from an ancestral technology. However, both the origins and the genetic legacy of the people who manufactured Clovis tools remain under debate. It is generally believed that these people ultimately derived from Asia and were directly related to contemporary Native Americans. An alternative, Solutrean, hypothesis posits that the Clovis predecessors emigrated from southwestern Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum. Here we report the genome sequence of a male infant (Anzick-1) recovered from the Anzick burial site in western Montana. The human bones date to 10,705 ± 35 (14)C years bp (approximately 12,707-12,556 calendar years bp) and were directly associated with Clovis tools. We sequenced the genome to an average depth of 14.4× and show that the gene flow from the Siberian Upper Palaeolithic Mal'ta population into Native American ancestors is also shared by the Anzick-1 individual and thus happened before 12,600 years bp. We also show that the Anzick-1 individual is more closely related to all indigenous American populations than to any other group. Our data are compatible with the hypothesis that Anzick-1 belonged to a population directly ancestral to many contemporary Native Americans. Finally, we find evidence of a deep divergence in Native American populations that predates the Anzick-1 individual.
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The ancient meta-population related to Anzick-1 appears to have been related to Upper Paleolithic Asians, who probably reached the Americas a few thousand years before Clovis.
“The ancient meta-population appears to have been related to Upper Paleolithic Asians, who probably reached the Americas a few thousand years before Clovis [36].”
From Ancient DNA and the rewriting of human history: be sparing with Occam’s razor (2016) · cites this paper as [36]
Anzick-1 belonged to a meta-population from which many contemporary Native Americans are descended, and is closely related to all indigenous American populations.
“Anzick-1 belonged to a meta-population from which many contemporary Native Americans are descended, and is closely related to all indigenous American populations.”
From Ancient DNA and the rewriting of human history: be sparing with Occam’s razor (2016) · cites this paper as [36]
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- Authors
- Rasmussen, M., Anzick, S. L., Waters, M. R., Skoglund, P., DeGiorgio, M., Stafford, T. W., Rasmussen, S., Moltke, I., Albrechtsen, A., Doyle, S. M., Poznik, G. D., Gudmundsdottir, V., Yadav, R., Malaspinas, A.-S., V, S. S. W., Allentoft, M. E., Cornejo, O. E., Tambets, K., Eriksson, A., Heintzman, P. D., Karmin, M., Korneliussen, T. S., Meltzer, D. J., Pierre, T. L., Stenderup, J., Saag, L., Warmuth, V. M., Lopes, M. C., Malhi, R. S., Brunak, S., Sicheritz-Ponten, T., Barnes, I., Collins, M., Orlando, L., Balloux, F., Manica, A., Gupta, R., Metspalu, M., Bustamante, C. D., Jakobsson, M., Nielsen, R., & Willerslev, E.
- Affiliations
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- Texas A&M University (US)
- Uppsala University (SE)
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- Technical University of Denmark (DK)
- Montana State University (US)
- Stanford University (US)
- Washington State University (US)
- Estonian Biocentre (EE)
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- University of London (GB)
- Southern Methodist University (US)
- University College London (GB)
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- University of York (GB)
- Stanford Medicine (US)
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- Corresponding author
- Willerslev, Eske
- ORCID
- Rasmussen, Morten
- Anzick, Sarah L.
- Waters, Michael R.
- Skoglund, Pontus
- Stafford, Thomas W.
- Rasmussen, Simon
- Moltke, Ida
- Albrechtsen, Anders
- Poznik, G. David
- Yadav, Rachita
- Malaspinas, Anna-Sapfo
- Allentoft, Morten E.
- Cornejo, Omar E.
- Tambets, Kristiina
- Eriksson, Anders
- Heintzman, Peter D.
- Karmin, Monika
- Korneliussen, Thorfinn Sand
- Meltzer, David J.
- Stenderup, Jesper
- Saag, Lauri
- Warmuth, Vera M.
- Malhi, Ripan S.
- Brunak, Søren
- Barnes, Ian
- Collins, Matthew
- Orlando, Ludovic
- Manica, Andrea
- Gupta, Ramneek
- Metspalu, Mait
- Bustamante, Carlos D.
- Jakobsson, Mattias
- Nielsen, Rasmus
- Willerslev, Eske
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2014-02-12
- Volume
- 506
- Issue
- 7487
- Pages
- 225-229
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- PMC
- PMC4878442
- OpenAlex
- W1989965598
- Cited by
- 562
- References
- 25
- Citations by year
- 2026: 18 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 47 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 63 · 2020: 48 · 2019: 49 · 2018: 57 · 2017: 61 · 2016: 44 · 2015: 64 · 2014: 30
- FWCI
- 43.45
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion)
- Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen) (submittedVersion)
- Scopus (Elsevier) (submittedVersion)
- Technical University of Denmark, DTU Orbit (Technical University of Denmark, DTU) (submittedVersion)
- King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Repository (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Griffith Research Online (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Villum Fonden (00007171)
- Lundbeckfonden (R109-2012-9995, R70-2010-6286, R155-2013-16338, R38-2008-3048, R24-2008-2527)
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/H005854/1, P25032, BB/H008802/1, BB/H008802/2)
- U.S. National Library of Medicine (T15LM007033)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Forensic and Genetic Research
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic diversity and population structure
- Keywords
- Clovis culture, ancient human genomes, Native American ancestry, human migration to the Americas, Last Glacial Maximum, prehistoric population genetics, Clovis points, western Montana
- MeSH terms
- Archaeology, Asia, Bone and Bones, Burial, DNA, Mitochondrial, Emigration and Immigration, Europe, Haplotypes, Humans, Indians, North American, Infant, Male, Models, Genetic, Molecular Sequence Data, Montana, Phylogeny, Population Dynamics, Genome, Human, Chromosomes, Human, Y, History, Ancient, Gene Flow, Radiometric Dating
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