The Genetic Prehistory of the New World Arctic. Arctic

The New World Arctic, the last region of the Americas to be populated by humans, has a relatively well-researched archaeology but an understanding of its genetic history is lacking. We present genome-wide sequence data from ancient and present-day humans from Greenland, Arctic Canada, Alaska, Aleutian Islands and Siberia. We show that Paleo-Eskimos (ca. 3000 BC-1300 AD) represent a migration pulse into the Americas independent of both Native American and Inuit expansions. Furthermore, the genetic continuity characterizing the Paleo-Eskimo period was interrupted by the arrival of a new population, representing the ancestors of present-day Inuit, with evidence of past gene flow between these lineages. Despite periodic abandonment of major Arctic regions, a single Paleo-Eskimo meta-population likely survived in near-isolation for more than 4,000 years, only to vanish around 700 years ago.