Ancient mitochondrial DNA evidence for prehistoric population movement: The Numic expansion

The mitochondrial DNA of modern Native Americans has been shown to fall int o one of at least five haplogroups (A, B, C, D, or X) whose frequencies dif fer among tribal groups. The frequencies of these five haplogroups in a col lection of ancient individuals from Western Nevada dating to between approx imately 350-9,200 years BP were determined. These data were used to test th e hypothesis, supported by archaeological and linguistic data, that the cur rent inhabitants of the Great Basin, the Numic speakers, are recent immigra nts into the area who replaced the previous non-Numic inhabitants. The freq uency distributions of haplogroups in the ancient and modern Native America ns differed significantly, suggesting that there is a genetic discontinuity between the ancient inhabitants and the modern Numic speakers, providing f urther support for the Recent Numic Expansion hypothesis. The distribution of mitochondrial haplogroups of the ancient inhabitants of the Great Basin is most similar to those of some of the modern Native American inhabitants of California. (C) 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.