Genetic analysis concludes that North American Inuits and Inupiat peoples migrated east from Greenland.
Genetic studies conducted among the North American people of the prominent native tribes show the eastward migration from Alaska’s North Slope to Greenland as far back as 5,000 years ago.
The findings were recently published in American Journal of Physical Anthropology and connected the migrations with Neo and Paleo-Eskimos to living Inuit populations in Alaska, Canada and Greenland. There was also some indication that women, from both areas along the coast, traveled back and forth into communities and, perhaps, linking them as a single population. Stories of the community leaders and elders have related in stories handed down in their history.
The DNA used was mitochrondrial which measures markers handed down from mother to child. One hundred and fifty one volunteers gave saliva samples to the research team. After analysis, the team found that 98 percent of the maternal lines were of Arctic ascent containing all known haplogroups. Haplogroups are those which contain a common nucleotide mutation in all halotypes.
Until recently, a clear biological link had not been found to the Paleo-Eskimo and the DNA of the Neo-Eskimo. Paleo-Eskimos were the first people to migrate from Alaska to the North American Artic, and, later followed by the more sophisticated Neo-Eskimo.
In the modern population of Inupiat and Inuit communities, DNA from both were found to be similar to that of the Paleo- and Neo-Eskimo populations. There is also another sub-group identified as the C4 haplogroup, usually found in the south of the North American continent. These Native Americans may have intermarried with Inupiat and Athapascan families to ensure population growth.
It is also thoeirzed there may have been not only the two migrations to Greenland but another migration back to the Alaskan North Slope.
Further studies for the team will include analyzing Y-chromosomes from the male population and attempt to show what effects outsiders had on the group beginning in the 1900’s and the history of the community of the modern Inuit and Inupiat peoples.
