DNA Finding Announced Today

Tiny region in central Russia has DNA link to native Americans today

Ancestors thought to have walked across ice 13,000 years ago

Altai is 'key place', because central location means ancient peoples passed through


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2092258/Native-Americans-actually-came-tiny-mountain-region-Russia-DNA-research-reveals.html#ixzz1kbRYqQiG




Altai in southern Siberia sits right at the centre of Russia. But the tiny, mountainous republic has a claim to fame unknown until now - Native Americans can trace their origins to the remote region.

DNA research revealed that genetic markers linking people living in the Russian republic of Altai, southern Siberia, with indigenous populations in North America.

A study of the mutations indicated a lineage shift between 13,000 and 14,000 years ago - when people are thought to have walked across the ice from Russia to America.

Altai in Siberia: A study of genetic markers in DNA showed that the lineage of Native Americans changed around 13-14,000 years ago - when people are thought to have walked across the Bering Strait

This roughly coincides with the period when humans from Siberia are thought to have crossed what is now the Bering strait and entered America.

'Altai is a key area because it's a place where people have been coming and going for thousands and thousands of years,' said Dr Theodore Schurr, from the University of Pennsylvania in the US.

Among the people who may have emerged from the Altai region are the predecessors of the first Native Americans. 

Roughly 20-25,000 years ago, these prehistoric humans carried their Asian genetic lineages up into the far reaches of Siberia and eventually across the then-exposed Bering land mass into the Americas.

'Our goal in working in this area was to better define what those founding lineages or sister lineages are to Native American populations,' Schurr said.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2092258/Native-Americans-actually-came-tiny-mountain-region-Russia-DNA-research-reveals.html#ixzz1kbO2uDKL


To be continued tomorrow


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23andMe Reconsiders Drastic Actions

 Thanks to those who complained about 23andMe's plans to drop non-paying subscribers from their data base, 23andMe announced they have reconsidered their plans. When the autosomal DNA kits were first sold there were no subscription fees, then about a year ago, the company began requiring a one year $9. a month commitment to get new info, but said after that time, customers could keep their access to medical information and genealogy matches, just get go new info if they dropped the subscription. Many were very upset by the December announcement that they would just simply be dropped. This move would have also deprived subscription paying customers of many of their matches, distant cousins with the potential to break down brick walls.

Company statement:
 http://spittoon.23andme.com/2012/01/08/an-update-to-23andme-customers/


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