Research news: Most American Indians' DNA is traced to six women

The News:
Most American Indians' DNA is traced to six women
A new study indicates the women migrated to North America from a land bridge about 20,000 years ago.
By Malcolm Ritter The Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 03/14/2008 01:55:05 AM MDT
NEW YORK — Nearly all of today's American Indians in North, Central and South America can trace their ancestry to just six women whose descendants immigrated about 20,000 years ago, a DNA study suggests.
The result doesn't mean that only six women gave rise to the migrants who crossed into North America from Asia in the initial populating of the continent.
Rather, it suggests that only six left a particular DNA legacy that persists today in about about 95 percent of American Indians, said the study's co-author, Ugo Perego in Utah.
The women didn't necessarily arrive together, nor even all live at the same time, he said. Results indicate the women arrived between 18,000 and 21,000 years ago.
The work was published this week by the journal PLoS One. Perego is from the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation in Salt Lake City and the University of Pavia in Italy. more...

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the journal PLoS One.