For the first time, researchers have successfully sequenced the genome of an ancient fossil human from the late Pleistocene
The researchers compared the genome of these fossils withthe genome of people from all over the world. They found that the bones belonged to a person who was deeply connected to the East Asian origins of the Native Americans.
Combined with data from previous studies,this finding led the research team to speculate that some of the southern peoples of East Asia traveled north along the coast of present-day eastern China through Japan and reached Siberia tens of thousands of years ago. They then crossed the Bering Strait between the continents of Asia and North America and became the first people to arrive in the New World.
Next, the team plans to sequence the DNA of older humans using fossils from southern East Asia.