The first genome sequencing of the 12,600 years old skeletal remains of a small boy discovered at the Anzick Clovis site in Wilsall, Montana shows that the first settlers in North America came from Asia and were the direct ancestors of modern Native Americans.
Genetic scientists say the 12,600-year-old Clovis boy is more closely related to all indigenous American populations than to any other group. Painting by G. Mülzel.
While not the earliest inhabitants of the Americas, Clovis people represent the first humans with a wide expansion on the North American continent – until the culture mysteriously disappeared only a few hundred years after its origin.
They lived about 13,000 years ago and hunted mammoth, mastodons and giant bison with big spears.
Clovis culture originated south of the large Ice Sheets that covered Canada at that time and are the direct descendants of the earliest people who arrived in the New World around 15,000 years ago.
Clovis people fashioned their stone spear tips with grooved, or fluted, bases. They invented the ‘Clovis point,’ a spear-shaped weapon made of stone that is found in Texas and other portions of the United States and northern Mexico.
The skeletal remains of a Clovis 1-year-old boy were found in 1968 near a rock cliff in central Montana, along with more than 100 artifacts with the boy such as spear points and antler tools. It is the oldest known human burial from North America and it is the only Clovis-era burial site ever found.
The skeleton and burial artifacts were covered with red ochre, a type of mineral. The ochre was powdered and used in the burial ceremony. Ochre was often used in prehistoric times as a pigment and in burials.
Now a large group of genetic scientists led by Dr Eske Willerslev from the University of Copenhagen has mapped the Clovis boy’s genome.
“We were able to extract DNA from the bones and show that the ancestors of this boy originated from Asia. These people eventually migrated to North America, settled the continent, and gave rise to Clovis,” explained Prof Michael Waters from Texas A&M University, a co-author of a paper published in the journal Nature.
“It is gratifying to see the genetic evidence meshing with the archaeological evidence. These two methods together will tell the story of the earliest settlers of the Americas.”
He added: “the genetic information provided by the Anzick boy is also part of the larger story of modern humans. We know that modern humans originated in Africa and then around 50,000 years ago spread rapidly over Europe and Asia. The last continent explored and settled by modern humans were the Americas. In essence, the Anzick boy tells us about the epic journey of our species.”
“Native Americans from Montana, led by the Crow Tribe, will oversee the reburial of the remains in accordance with Native rituals in the near future,” Prof Waters said.
“We hope that this study leads to more cooperation between Native Americans and scientists. This is just one human genome. We need to know the genetic story of modern Native peoples and derive more genetic data from ancient remains to fully understand the origins and movements of the First Americans and their descendants.”
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Rasmussen M. et al. 2014. The genome of a Late Pleistocene human from a Clovis burial site in western Montana. Nature 506, 225–229; doi: 10.1038/nature13025
