Ancient individuals from the North American Northwest Coast reveal 10,000 years of regional genetic continuity
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Recent genome-wide studies of both ancient and modern indigenous people of the Americas have shed light on the demographic processes involved during the first peopling. The Pacific northwest coast proves an intriguing focus for these studies due to its association with coastal migration models and genetic ancestral patterns that are difficult to reconcile with modern DNA alone. Here we report the genome-wide sequence of an ancient individual known as “Shuká K áa” (“Man Ahead of Us”) recovered from the On Your Knees Cave (OYKC) in southeastern Alaska (archaeological site 49-PET-408). The human remains date to approximately 10,300 cal years before present (BP). We also analyze low coverage genomes of three more recent individuals from the nearby coast of British Columbia dating from approximately 6075 to 1750 cal years BP. From the resulting time series of genetic data, we show that the Pacific Northwest Coast exhibits genetic continuity for at least the past 10,300 cal BP. We also infer that population structure existed in the late Pleistocene of North America with Shuká K áa on a different ancestral line compared to other North American individuals (i.e., Anzick-1 and Kennewick Man) from the late Pleistocene or early Holocene. Despite regional shifts in mitochondrial DNA haplogroups we conclude from individuals sampled through time that people of the northern Northwest Coast belong to an early genetic lineage that may stem from a late Pleistocene coastal migration into the Americas. Significance Statement The peopling of the Americas has been examined on the continental level with the aid of single-nucleotide polymorphism arrays, next generation sequencing, and advancements in ancient DNA, all of which have helped elucidate major population movements. Regional paleogenomic studies, however, have received less attention and may reveal a more nuanced demographic history. Here we present genomewide sequences of individuals from the northern Northwest Coast covering a time span of ~10,000 years and show that continental patterns of demography do not necessarily apply on the regional level. In comparison with existing paleogenomic data, we demonstrate that geographically linked population samples from the Northwest Coast exhibit an early ancestral lineage and find that population structure existed among Native North American groups as early as the late Pleistocene.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".