DNA from Ice Age Baby Uproots Native American Family Tree

DNA analysis of a six-week-old baby girl, buried some 11,500 years ago in what is now Alaska, has identified her as a member of a previously unknown Native American population. The discovery strongly supports the theory that the Americas were settled by people from Siberia, and presents scientists with the genetic key to better understanding how ancient humans migrated to North America from Asia.

Since 2006, archaeologists have been excavating the site known as Upward Sun, in the Tanana River Valley in central Alaska, where short-term human settlements seem to have popped up periodically over thousands of years. In 2010, a team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks found human bones there, including the cremated remains of a three-year-old child on top of an ancient hearth.

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