DISTRIBUTION OF THE 4 FOUNDING LINEAGE HAPLOTYPES IN NATIVE-AMERICANSSUGGESTS A SINGLE WAVE OF MIGRATION FOR THE NEW-WORLD

The distribution of the four founding lineage haplogroups in Native Am ericans from North, Central, and South America shows a north to south increase in the frequency of lineage B and a North to South decrease i n the frequency of lineage A. All four founding lineage haplogroups we re detected in North, Central, and South America, and in Greenberg et al.'s ([1986] Curr. Anthropol. 27:477-497) three major linguistic grou ps (Amerind, NaDene, and Eskaleut), with all four haplogroups often fo und within a single population. Lineage A was the most common lineage in North America, regardless of language group. This overall distribut ion is most parsimonious with a single wave of migration into the New World which included multiple variants of all four founding lineage ty pes. Torroni et al.'s ([1993a] Am. J. Hum. Genet. 53:563-590) report t hat lineage B has a more recent divergence time than the other three l ineages can best be explained by multiple variants of lineages A, C, a nd D, and fewer variants of lineage B entering the New World. Alternat ively, there could have been multiple waves of migration from a single parent population in Asia/Siberia which repeatedly reintroduced the s ame lineages to the New World. (C) 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.