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Published online 29 May 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.863
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Unexpected origin of an early Eskimo
But hair sample could have been from a wandering mercenary.
An early wave of migration into the New World and the Arctic has been identified by sequencing a genome from a frozen hair excavated in Greenland.
Archaeological evidence shows that there were two waves of migration to Greenland starting 4,500 years ago, first with the Saqqaq and then the Dorset groups, collectively known as the Paleo-Eskimos.
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This evidence is fascinating and does seem to solve, in part, the settling of Greenland, at least by early Eskimos. However, there is still a controversy regarding the migration of Solutrean people out of Europe, across the edges of the ice sheet, not only into Greenland but also into North America. As for this find, not only was the genetic evidence compelling, but the knife blade seemed strikingly similar to those used by early Siberian people, evidence of which seemed to vanish once one passes what was once Beringia, to be replaced by other tool-making styles, specifically the Clovis point. It will be interesting to see how that debate evolves and how far back we eventually see North America having been settled by various groups.