A prehistoric boy's DNA now suggests that ancient toolmakers long thought of as the first Americans may serve as a kind of "missing link" between Native Americans and the rest of the world, researchers say.
The findings reveal these prehistoric toolmakers are the direct ancestors of many contemporary Native Americans, and are closely related to all Native Americans.
Scientists investigated a prehistoric culture known as the Clovis, named after sites discovered near Clovis, N.M. Centuries of cold, nicknamed the "Big Freeze," helped wipe out the Clovis, as well as most of the large mammals in North America. The artifacts of the Clovis are found south of the giant ice sheets that once covered Canada, in most of North America, though not in South America.
The stone tools of the Clovis, such as distinctive fluted or grooved spear points, date to about 12,600 to 13,000 years ago, making them the oldest widespread set of artifacts in North America. For most of the past 50 years, archaeologists thought the Clovis were the first Americans, but investigators recently uncovered evidence that humans were in the New World before Clovis, at least more than 14,000 years ago.
Researchers focused on bones unearthed by construction next to a rock cliff on the land of the Anzick family in central Montana. [See Images of Clovis Culture Artifacts]
"I was just a small child in 1968 when the only Clovis burial site was identified accidentally on my parents' property in Wilsall, Montana,"study co-author Sarah Anzick at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Mont., told Live Science.
Anzick boy
The so-called Anzick skeleton was found with about 125 artifacts, including Clovis fluted spear points and tools made from antlers, and covered in red ochre, a type of mineral.
"This is the oldest burial in North America, and the only known Clovis burial,"study co-author Michael Waters at Texas A&M University in College Station told Live Science.
Genetic studies tell us these were the remains of a boy," Waters said. "Physical anthropological studies tell us he was 1 to 1.5 years old, and radiocarbon dating tells us this burial took place about 12,600 years ago, at the end of the Clovis era." It remains uncertain how this child died.
The scientists analyzed DNA from the bones. They managed to recover the first complete genome sequence of an ancient North American, despite how badly preserved the DNA in the remains were.
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