DNA from 12,000-year-old skull sheds light on the first Americans
Thinkstock


For more than 12,000 years, the remains of a teenager have been hidden in an underwater cave in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Scientists believe that the girl was 14 or 15 when she fell into the chamber, and as the Ice Age ended and glaciers began to melt, her final resting place filled with water.
The divers who found the remains in 2007 named her Naia, the Los Angeles Times reports, and through DNA research scientists have discovered that while she does not resemble modern Native Americans (her forehead was very high and her cheeks narrow), her mitochondrial DNA (which is only passed on by the mother) shows she is related to 11 percent of living American Indians.
As experts conduct more DNA research, they are finding results suggesting that thousands of years ago, people came to North and South America from a land scientists call Beringia, situated between Siberia and Alaska. The people fled as glaciers melted and sea levels began to rise. In their new land, these Paleoamericans gradually began to evolve features now associated with Native Americans.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
"For years archeologists have been debating the trans-Atlantic thing and really it's been an enormous distraction," paleoarchaeologist John Hoffecker, who did not participate in the study, told the Times. "This helps us focus on Beringia, which is what we should have been doing all along." The study was published Thursday in the journal Science.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
-
Settling the West Bank: a death knell for a Palestine state?
In the Spotlight The reality on the ground is that the annexation of the West Bank is all but a done deal
-
Sudoku medium: August 23, 2025
The Week's daily medium sudoku puzzle
-
Sudoku hard: August 23, 2025
The Week's daily hard sudoku puzzle
-
Rabbits with 'horns' sighted across Colorado
speed read These creatures are infected with the 'mostly harmless' Shope papilloma virus
-
Lithium shows promise in Alzheimer's study
Speed Read Potential new treatments could use small amounts of the common metal
-
Scientists discover cause of massive sea star die-off
Speed Read A bacteria related to cholera has been found responsible for the deaths of more than 5 billion sea stars
-
'Thriving' ecosystem found 30,000 feet undersea
Speed Read Researchers discovered communities of creatures living in frigid, pitch-black waters under high pressure
-
New York plans first nuclear plant in 36 years
Speed Read The plant, to be constructed somewhere in upstate New York, will produce enough energy to power a million homes
-
Dehorning rhinos sharply cuts poaching, study finds
Speed Read The painless procedure may be an effective way to reduce the widespread poaching of rhinoceroses
-
Breakthrough gene-editing treatment saves baby
speed read KJ Muldoon was healed from a rare genetic condition
-
Sea lion proves animals can keep a beat
speed read A sea lion named Ronan beat a group of college students in a rhythmic dance-off, says new study