New Study Reconsiders Ancient Inuit Migration Route
04.06.2008 - Other
Based on a DNA analysis of a clump of hair from Northern Greenland, a new theory has emerged as to the origins of the first immigrants in Greenland. Not only does this discovery raise new insight as to the early Greenlandic immigration history, it also constitutes the first successful attempt to sequence an entire mitochondrial genome from an extinct human.
According to lead archaeologist, Professor Eske Willerslev, from the University of Copenhagen, inhabitants of the Aleutian Islands in the Northern Pacific Ocean and the Seriniki Yuit in the north-eastern part of Siberia "must have crossed the ice from the Aleutian Islands via Alaska and Canada and then on to Greenland. We have always known that the first immigrants came to Greenland approximately 4,500 years ago, because tools from that time have been found. But what we did not know was that they probably came via the Aleutian Islands, which our DNA research now shows".
The hair, found in the permafrost of the Disco Bay ice fjord area in north-west Greenland, dates back 4,000 years ago. Up until now, it was thought that the early inhabitants of Greenland were either Native Americans who colonized Northern America or direct ancestors of the present-day population.
