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Science 24 April 1998:
Vol. 280. no. 5363, p. 520
DOI: 10.1126/science.280.5363.520
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Research News

HUMAN GENETICS:
Genes May Link Ancient Eurasians, Native Americans

Virginia Morell

Anthropologists have recently been puzzled by surprising features on a handful of ancient American skeletons that resemble those of Europeans rather than Asians, the presumed ancestors of the first people to cross the Bering Strait into the Americas. Now a new genetic study may link Native Americans and people of Europe and the Middle East, offering tantalizing support to a controversial theory that a band of people who originally lived in Europe or Asia Minor were among this continent's first settlers. The new data come from studies of a genetic marker called Lineage X, which has been found both in living Native Americans and in certain groups in Europe and Asia Minor, including Italians, Finns, and certain Israelis--but not in any Asian population.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)