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Terminal Pleistocene Alaskan genome reveals first founding population of Native Americans

Overview of attention for article published in Nature, January 2018
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  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (98th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
108 news outlets
blogs
27 blogs
twitter
591 X users
facebook
29 Facebook pages
wikipedia
40 Wikipedia pages
googleplus
4 Google+ users
reddit
3 Redditors
video
3 YouTube creators

Citations

dimensions_citation
275 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
514 Mendeley
citeulike
2 CiteULike
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Title
Terminal Pleistocene Alaskan genome reveals first founding population of Native Americans
Published in
Nature, January 2018
DOI 10.1038/nature25173
Pubmed ID
Authors

J. Víctor Moreno-Mayar, Ben A. Potter, Lasse Vinner, Matthias Steinrücken, Simon Rasmussen, Jonathan Terhorst, John A. Kamm, Anders Albrechtsen, Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas, Martin Sikora, Joshua D. Reuther, Joel D. Irish, Ripan S. Malhi, Ludovic Orlando, Yun S. Song, Rasmus Nielsen, David J. Meltzer, Eske Willerslev

Abstract

Despite broad agreement that the Americas were initially populated via Beringia, the land bridge that connected far northeast Asia with northwestern North America during the Pleistocene epoch, when and how the peopling of the Americas occurred remains unresolved. Analyses of human remains from Late Pleistocene Alaska are important to resolving the timing and dispersal of these populations. The remains of two infants were recovered at Upward Sun River (USR), and have been dated to around 11.5 thousand years ago (ka). Here, by sequencing the USR1 genome to an average coverage of approximately 17 times, we show that USR1 is most closely related to Native Americans, but falls basal to all previously sequenced contemporary and ancient Native Americans. As such, USR1 represents a distinct Ancient Beringian population. Using demographic modelling, we infer that the Ancient Beringian population and ancestors of other Native Americans descended from a single founding population that initially split from East Asians around 36 ± 1.5 ka, with gene flow persisting until around 25 ± 1.1 ka. Gene flow from ancient north Eurasians into all Native Americans took place 25-20 ka, with Ancient Beringians branching off around 22-18.1 ka. Our findings support a long-term genetic structure in ancestral Native Americans, consistent with the Beringian 'standstill model'. We show that the basal northern and southern Native American branches, to which all other Native Americans belong, diverged around 17.5-14.6 ka, and that this probably occurred south of the North American ice sheets. We also show that after 11.5 ka, some of the northern Native American populations received gene flow from a Siberian population most closely related to Koryaks, but not Palaeo-Eskimos, Inuits or Kets, and that Native American gene flow into Inuits was through northern and not southern Native American groups. Our findings further suggest that the far-northern North American presence of northern Native Americans is from a back migration that replaced or absorbed the initial founding population of Ancient Beringians.

X Demographics

X Demographics

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 514 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 514 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 123 24%
Researcher 70 14%
Student > Bachelor 65 13%
Student > Master 63 12%
Professor 32 6%
Other 86 17%
Unknown 75 15%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 136 26%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 108 21%
Social Sciences 48 9%
Arts and Humanities 39 8%
Earth and Planetary Sciences 19 4%
Other 66 13%
Unknown 98 19%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1410. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 01 February 2024.
All research outputs
#8,846
of 25,563,770 outputs
Outputs from Nature
#923
of 98,239 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#135
of 451,495 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Nature
#11
of 804 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,563,770 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 98,239 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 102.6. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 451,495 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 804 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.