Researchers at the University of Tübingen, with collaborators from multiple nations, reveal that people did more than migrate from Siberia to the Americas: they also moved back. The findings appear in current biology and add a new layer to early human journeys.
In their analysis, the team examined the DNA of ten individuals younger than seven and a half millennia. They identified a previously unrecognized Altai hunter-gatherer group living in the Neolithic Altai-Sayan region, not far from where Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan meet. Genetic data indicate this community consisted of mixed ancestry, blending populations that thrived in Siberia and northern Eurasia during the last ice age.
The study also maps several migratory pulses from North America toward northeast Asia within the last five thousand years. Early American populations likely reached Kamchatka and Central Siberia, while people in the Far East shared genetic links with hunter-gatherers across the Japanese archipelago.
Researchers point to an unusual burial found in the Altai area, where a man was interred in religious attire with artifacts pointing to shamanistic practices. The grave goods differ from other local burials, suggesting that culturally and genetically distinct groups were repeatedly reintroduced into the Altai Territory. The Altai region is notable in human history as the place where Denisovans, an archaic population, were first identified. Beyond that, it has long served as a crossroads for human movements connecting North Siberia, Central Asia, and East Asia over thousands of years.
The well-established pattern of people crossing the Bering Strait from northern Asia into North America is reinforced by these findings. Yet the genetic landscape of northern Asia during those periods has been less certain because only a limited number of ancient genomes from the region had been studied. This new work helps illuminate how migration routes and population mixtures evolved across vast, connected landscapes over millennia.