iBet uBet web content aggregator. Adding the entire web to your favor.
iBet uBet web content aggregator. Adding the entire web to your favor.



Link to original content: https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature11258
Reconstructing Native American population history | Nature
Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Reconstructing Native American population history

Nature volume 488, pages 370–374 (2012)Cite this article

Subjects

A Corrigendum to this article was published on 07 November 2012

Abstract

The peopling of the Americas has been the subject of extensive genetic, archaeological and linguistic research; however, central questions remain unresolved1,2,3,4,5. One contentious issue is whether the settlement occurred by means of a single6,7,8 migration or multiple streams of migration from Siberia9,10,11,12,13,14,15. The pattern of dispersals within the Americas is also poorly understood. To address these questions at a higher resolution than was previously possible, we assembled data from 52 Native American and 17 Siberian groups genotyped at 364,470 single nucleotide polymorphisms. Here we show that Native Americans descend from at least three streams of Asian gene flow. Most descend entirely from a single ancestral population that we call ‘First American’. However, speakers of Eskimo–Aleut languages from the Arctic inherit almost half their ancestry from a second stream of Asian gene flow, and the Na-Dene-speaking Chipewyan from Canada inherit roughly one-tenth of their ancestry from a third stream. We show that the initial peopling followed a southward expansion facilitated by the coast, with sequential population splits and little gene flow after divergence, especially in South America. A major exception is in Chibchan speakers on both sides of the Panama isthmus, who have ancestry from both North and South America.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Geographic, linguistic and genetic overview of 52 Native American populations.
Figure 2: Distinct streams of gene flow from Asia into America.
Figure 3: A model fitting populations of entirely First American ancestry.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Cavalli-Sforza, L. L., Menozzi, P. & Piazza, A. The History and Geography of Human Genes (Princeton Univ. Press, 1994)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  2. Meltzer, D. J. First Peoples in a New World: Colonizing Ice Age America (Univ. of California Press, 2009)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Goebel, T., Waters, M. R. & O’Rourke, D. H. The late Pleistocene dispersal of modern humans in the Americas. Science 319, 1497–1502 (2008)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Dillehay, T. D. Probing deeper into first American studies. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 971–978 (2009)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. O’Rourke, D. H. & Raff, J. A. The human genetic history of the Americas: the final frontier. Curr. Biol. 20, R202–R207 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Tamm, E. et al. Beringian standstill and spread of Native American founders. PLoS ONE 2, e829 (2007)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  7. Kitchen, A., Miyamoto, M. M. & Mulligan, C. J. A three-stage colonization model for the peopling of the Americas. PLoS ONE 3, e1596 (2008)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  8. Fagundes, N. J. et al. Mitochondrial population genomics supports a single pre-Clovis origin with a coastal route for the peopling of the Americas. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 82, 583–592 (2008)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Greenberg, J. H., Turner, C. G. & Zegura, S. L. The settlement of the Americas: a comparison of the linguistic, dental, and genetic evidence. Curr. Anthropol. 27, 477–497 (1986)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Lell, J. T. et al. The dual origin and Siberian affinities of Native American Y chromosomes. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 70, 192–206 (2002)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Bortolini, M. C. et al. Y-chromosome evidence for differing ancient demographic histories in the Americas. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 73, 524–539 (2003)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Volodko, N. V. et al. Mitochondrial genome diversity in arctic Siberians, with particular reference to the evolutionary history of Beringia and Pleistocenic peopling of the Americas. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 82, 1084–1100 (2008)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Ray, N. et al. A statistical evaluation of models for the initial settlement of the American continent emphasizes the importance of gene flow with Asia. Mol. Biol. Evol. 27, 337–345 (2010)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. de Azevedo, S. et al. Evaluating microevolutionary models for the early settlement of the New World: the importance of recurrent gene flow with Asia. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 146, 539–552 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Perego, U. A. et al. Distinctive Paleo-Indian migration routes from Beringia marked by two rare mtDNA haplogroups. Curr. Biol. 19, 1–8 (2009)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Alexander, D. H., Novembre, J. & Lange, K. Fast model-based estimation of ancestry in unrelated individuals. Genome Res. 19, 1655–1664 (2009)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Ruhlen, M. A Guide to the World’s Languages (Stanford Univ. Press, 1991)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Schroeder, K. B. et al. A private allele ubiquitous in the Americas. Biol. Lett. 3, 218–223 (2007)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Ray, N. PATHMATRIX: a geographical information system tool to compute effective distances among samples. Mol. Ecol. Notes 5, 177–180 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Wang, S. et al. Genetic variation and population structure in native Americans. PLoS Genet. 3, e185 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Yang, N. N. et al. Contrasting patterns of nuclear and mtDNA diversity in Native American populations. Ann. Hum. Genet. 74, 525–538 (2010)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Brown, M. D. et al. mtDNA haplogroup X: an ancient link between Europe/Western Asia and North America? Am. J. Hum. Genet. 63, 1852–1861 (1998)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Karafet, T. M. et al. Ancestral Asian source(s) of new world Y-chromosome founder haplotypes. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 64, 817–831 (1999)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Reich, D., Thangaraj, K., Patterson, N., Price, A. L. & Singh, L. Reconstructing Indian population history. Nature 461, 489–494 (2009)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Rasmussen, M. et al. Ancient human genome sequence of an extinct Palaeo-Eskimo. Nature 463, 757–762 (2010)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Balter, M. Archaeology. The peopling of the Aleutians. Science 335, 158–161 (2012)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  27. Cooke, R. Prehistory of native Americans on the Central American land bridge: Colonization, dispersal, and divergence. J. Archaeol. Res. 13, 129–187 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Wang, S. et al. Geographic patterns of genome admixture in Latin American Mestizos. PLoS Genet. 4, e1000037 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Bryc, K. et al. Colloquium paper: genome-wide patterns of population structure and admixture among Hispanic/Latino populations. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107 (Suppl 2). 8954–8961 (2010)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. Wall, J. D. et al. Genetic variation in Native Americans, inferred from Latino SNP and resequencing data. Mol. Biol. Evol. 28, 2231–2237 (2011)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  31. Price, A. L. et al. Sensitive detection of chromosomal segments of distinct ancestry in admixed populations. PLoS Genet. 5, e1000519 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Browning, S. R. & Browning, B. L. Rapid and accurate haplotype phasing and missing-data inference for whole-genome association studies by use of localized haplotype clustering. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 81, 1084–1097 (2007)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  33. Patterson, N., Price, A. L. & Reich, D. Population structure and eigenanalysis. PLoS Genet. 2, e190 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Saitou, N. & Nei, M. The neighbor-joining method: a new method for reconstructing phylogenetic trees. Mol. Biol. Evol. 4, 406–425 (1987)

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  35. Liu, K. & Muse, S. V. PowerMarker: an integrated analysis environment for genetic marker analysis. Bioinformatics 21, 2128–2129 (2005)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  36. Greenberg, J. H. Language in the Americas (Stanford Univ. Press, 1987)

    Google Scholar 

  37. Campbell, L. American Indian languages: the historical linguistics of Native America (Oxford Univ. Press, 1997)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank the volunteers who provided the samples that made this study possible. We thank E. D. Ruiz for assistance in the collection involving the Mixtec, Zapotec and Mixe; and P. Herrera for assistance in the collection involving the Quechua; A. Carnevale, M. Crawford, M. Metspalu, F. C. Nielsen, X. Soberon, R. Villems and E. Willerslev for facilitating sharing of data from Mexican, Siberian and Arctic populations; C. Stevens and A. Crenshaw for assistance with genotyping; and P. Bellwood, D. Bolnick, K. Bryc, J. Diamond, T. Dillehay, R. Gonzalez-José, M. Hammer, J. Hill, B. Kemp, S. LeBlanc, D. Meltzer, P. Moorjani, A. Moreno-Estrada, B. Pakendorf, J. Pickrell, M. Ruhlen, D. G. Smith, M. Stoneking, N. Tuross and A. Williams for critiques and discussions. Support was provided by National Institutes of Health grants NS043538 (A.R.-L.), NS037484 and MH075007 (N.B.F.), GM079558 (A.D.), GM079558-S1 (A.D.), GM057672 (K.K.K. and J.R.K.), and HG006399 (D.R., N.P. & A.L.P); by a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council grant BB/1021213/1; by a National Science Foundation HOMINID grant BCS-1032255 (D.R. and N.P.); by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research grant (D.L.); by a Universidad de Antioquia CODI grant (G.B.); by a Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria grant PS 09/2368 (A.C.); by a Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion grant SAF2011-26983 (A.S.); by a Wenner-Gren Foundation grant ICRG-65 (A.D. and R.S.); by Russian Foundation for Basic Research grants 06-04-048182 (R.S.) and 02-06-80524a (L.O.); by a Siberian Branch Russian Academy of Sciences field grant (L.O.); by a Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Programme Interdisciplinaire de Recherche Amazonie grant (J.-M.D.); and by startup funds from Harvard Medical School (D.R.) and the Harvard School of Public Health (A.L.P.).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Irma Silva-Zolezzi & Gerardo Jimenez-Sanchez

    Present address: Present addresses: BioAnalytical Science Department Nestec Ltd, Nestlé Research Center, 1000 Lausanne, Switzerland (I.S.-Z.); Global Biotech Consulting Group, México City 09010, México (G.J.-S.).,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA

    David Reich & Arti Tandon

  2. Broad Institute of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 02142, Massachusetts, USA

    David Reich, Nick Patterson, Arti Tandon & Alkes L. Price

  3. Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London WC1E 6BT, UK

    Desmond Campbell, Stéphane Mazieres, Maria V. Parra, Winston Rojas, Constanza Duque, Natalia Mesa, Claudio M. Bravi, Tábita Hünemeier & Andrés Ruiz-Linares

  4. Department of Psychiatry and Centre for Genomic Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR

    Desmond Campbell

  5. Anthropologie Bio-culturelle, Droit, Ethique et Santé (ADES), UMR 7268, Aix-Marseille Université/CNRS/EFS, Marseille 13344, France,

    Stéphane Mazieres

  6. Institute for Environmental Sciences, and Forel Institute, University of Geneva, Geneva 1227, Switzerland,

    Nicolas Ray

  7. Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia,

    Maria V. Parra, Winston Rojas, Constanza Duque, Natalia Mesa, Luis F. García, Omar Triana, Silvia Blair, Amanda Maestre & Gabriel Bedoya

  8. Fundación Salud para el Trópico, Santa Marta, Colombia,

    Juan C. Dib

  9. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular (CCT La Plata-CONICET, CICPCA), 1900 La Plata, Argentina,

    Claudio M. Bravi & Graciela Bailliet

  10. Servicio de Huellas Digitales Genéticas and CONICET, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Daniel Corach

  11. Departamento de Genética, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre 91501-970, Brazil,

    Tábita Hünemeier, Maria Cátira Bortolini & Francisco M. Salzano

  12. Departamento de Genética, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba 81531-980, Brazil,

    María Luiza Petzl-Erler

  13. National Institute of Anthropology and History, México City 06100, México,

    Victor Acuña-Alonzo

  14. Departamento de Endocrinología y Metabolismo, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, México City 14100, México,

    Carlos Aguilar-Salinas

  15. Unidad de Biología Molecular y Medicina Genómica, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán/Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México City 14000, México,

    Samuel Canizales-Quinteros, Teresa Tusié-Luna & Laura Riba

  16. Departamento de Biología, Facultad de Química, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México City 04510, México,

    Samuel Canizales-Quinteros

  17. Unidad de Investigación Médica en Nutrición, Hospital de Pediatría, CMNSXXI, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, México City 06720, México,

    Maricela Rodríguez-Cruz & Mardia Lopez-Alarcón

  18. Sección de Posgrado, Escuela Superior de Medicina del Instituto Politécnico Nacional, México City 11340, México,

    Ramón Coral-Vazquez

  19. Departamento de Salud Reproductiva y Genética, Laboratorio de Biología de la Reproducción, Centro de Investigaciones Regionales, Mérida Yucatán 97000, México,

    Thelma Canto-Cetina

  20. Instituto Nacional de Medicina Genómica, México City 14610, México,

    Irma Silva-Zolezzi, Juan Carlos Fernandez-Lopez, Alejandra V. Contreras & Gerardo Jimenez-Sanchez

  21. Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, San Nicolás de los Garza, Nuevo León 66451, México,

    Maria José Gómez-Vázquez

  22. Centro de Investigaciones Biomédicas de Guatemala, Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala,

    Julio Molina

  23. Instituto de Ciencias Forenses, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Fundación de Medicina Xenómica (SERGAS), CIBERER, Santiago de Compostela, Galicia 15782, Spain,

    Ángel Carracedo & Antonio Salas

  24. Laboratorios de Investigación y Desarrollo, Facultad de Ciencias y Filosofía, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima 15102, Peru,

    Carla Gallo & Giovanni Poletti

  25. Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago, Chicago, 60637, USA

    David B. Witonsky, Gorka Alkorta-Aranburu & Anna Di Rienzo

  26. Laboratory of Human Molecular Genetics, Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia,

    Rem I. Sukernik

  27. Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia,

    Ludmila Osipova

  28. Department of Molecular Genetics, Yakut Research Center of Complex Medical Problems and North-East Federal University, Yakutsk, Sakha (Yakutia) 677010, Russia,

    Sardana A. Fedorova

  29. Instituto Boliviano de Biología de la Altura, Universidad Autonoma Tomás Frías, Potosí, Bolivia,

    René Vasquez & Mercedes Villena

  30. Département de Pédiatrie, Centre de Recherche du CHU Sainte-Justine, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Quebec H3T 1C5, Canada,

    Claudia Moreau & Damian Labuda

  31. Escuela de Biología, Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica,

    Ramiro Barrantes

  32. Center for Human Genetic Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 02114, Massachusetts, USA

    David Pauls

  33. Computational and Molecular Population Genetics Laboratory, Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland,

    Laurent Excoffier

  34. Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland,

    Laurent Excoffier

  35. Instituto de Alta Investigación, Universidad de Tarapacá, Programa de Genética Humana ICBM Facultad de Medicina Universidad de Chile and Centro de Investigaciones del Hombre en el Desierto, Arica 1001236, Chile,

    Francisco Rothhammer

  36. Anthropologie Moléculaire et Imagerie de Synthèse, CNRS UMR 5288, Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse III, Toulouse 31000, France,

    Jean-Michel Dugoujon & Georges Larrouy

  37. School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    William Klitz

  38. Department of Genetics, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, 06520, Connecticut, USA

    Judith Kidd & Kenneth Kidd

  39. Center for Neurobehavioral Genetics, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, 90095, California, USA

    Nelson B. Freimer

  40. Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA

    Alkes L. Price

Authors
  1. David Reich
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Nick Patterson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Desmond Campbell
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Arti Tandon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Stéphane Mazieres
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Nicolas Ray
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Maria V. Parra
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Winston Rojas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Constanza Duque
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Natalia Mesa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  11. Luis F. García
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  12. Omar Triana
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  13. Silvia Blair
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  14. Amanda Maestre
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  15. Juan C. Dib
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  16. Claudio M. Bravi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  17. Graciela Bailliet
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  18. Daniel Corach
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  19. Tábita Hünemeier
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  20. Maria Cátira Bortolini
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  21. Francisco M. Salzano
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  22. María Luiza Petzl-Erler
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  23. Victor Acuña-Alonzo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  24. Carlos Aguilar-Salinas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  25. Samuel Canizales-Quinteros
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  26. Teresa Tusié-Luna
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  27. Laura Riba
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  28. Maricela Rodríguez-Cruz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  29. Mardia Lopez-Alarcón
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  30. Ramón Coral-Vazquez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  31. Thelma Canto-Cetina
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  32. Irma Silva-Zolezzi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  33. Juan Carlos Fernandez-Lopez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  34. Alejandra V. Contreras
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  35. Gerardo Jimenez-Sanchez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  36. Maria José Gómez-Vázquez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  37. Julio Molina
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  38. Ángel Carracedo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  39. Antonio Salas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  40. Carla Gallo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  41. Giovanni Poletti
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  42. David B. Witonsky
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  43. Gorka Alkorta-Aranburu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  44. Rem I. Sukernik
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  45. Ludmila Osipova
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  46. Sardana A. Fedorova
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  47. René Vasquez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  48. Mercedes Villena
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  49. Claudia Moreau
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  50. Ramiro Barrantes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  51. David Pauls
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  52. Laurent Excoffier
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  53. Gabriel Bedoya
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  54. Francisco Rothhammer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  55. Jean-Michel Dugoujon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  56. Georges Larrouy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  57. William Klitz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  58. Damian Labuda
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  59. Judith Kidd
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  60. Kenneth Kidd
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  61. Anna Di Rienzo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  62. Nelson B. Freimer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  63. Alkes L. Price
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  64. Andrés Ruiz-Linares
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

D.R., N.B.F., A.L.P. and A.R-L. conceived the project. D.R., N.P., D.C., A.T., S.M., N.R. and A.R-L. performed analyses. D.R. and A. R.-L. wrote the paper with input from all the co-authors. A.R.-L. assembled the sample collection, directed experimental work and coordinated the study. All other authors contributed to the collection of samples and data.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to David Reich or Andrés Ruiz-Linares.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Additional information

The data analysed here are available for non-profit research on population history under an inter-institutional data access agreement with the Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia; queries regarding data access should be sent to A.R.-L. (a.ruizlin@ucl.ac.uk).

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Text 1-7, Supplementary Figures 1-5 and Supplementary Tables 1-3. (PDF 2279 kb)

PowerPoint slides

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Reich, D., Patterson, N., Campbell, D. et al. Reconstructing Native American population history. Nature 488, 370–374 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11258

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11258

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing