Ever since the Bering Land Bridge theories were proposed there have always been great amounts of focus placed on researching the archaeological, cultural, and genetic links between Siberians living in the Russian Far East and Native American populations. The ground work was first unknowingly laid to challenge this paradigm with the archaeological discoveries in 1979 at the Laomao Cave and in 1989 at the Red Deer Cave – both located in southern China. Over the ensuing decades these fossils were variously thought to be the product of Denisovans, Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans interbreeding with each other. Others went further and suggested a relation to Australopithecus or was even a hitherto unknown human species altogether. However, in 2022 scientists DNA tested the skull found in Red Deer Cave and discovered that the DNA bore many similarities with the DNA of prehistoric Native American remains and modern Native Americans. They also concluded that the individual was not a hybrid species as their DNA containing levels of other early humans was similar to that which exists in many modern humans today. Therefore, it was firmly established that the individual was entirely an anatomically modern human. The wildly different morphology of the individual’s bones however remains an open question as the DNA levels extracted were not sufficient in order to be able to answer this question. This revelation further fills in the story of the prehistoric settlement of the Americas as it is now no longer debatable whether it was just Siberians who made the journey into the Americas; instead, it is clear that numerous different populations coming in numerous different migratory waves going back and forth across the Bering Sea contributed their DNA to what would become the Native American populations of the Americas. Incredibly in the same year of 2022, in western Idaho, along the Salmon River at an archaeological site named Cooper’s Ferry, projectile points were found that bore a very strong similarity with ones found in Hokkaido, Japan. Not only that, but they also dated to around the same time period strongly suggesting interactions between populations in Hokkaido and the Americas. Mitochondrial DNA analysis has concluded that the East Asian populations, represented by the Red Deer Cave fossils, migrated north toward present day Japan and Hokkaido and planted their DNA there before moving further north towards Siberia. Afterwards, they migrated east towards the Bering Land Bridge and Strait and then towards the Americas. Researchers were surprised to see a genetic link between Japanese and Native American people. This link is especially strong between the indigenous Ainu people of Hokkaido, Japan and Native Americans.
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