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On the Number of New World Founders: A Population Genetic Portrait of the Peopling of the Americas

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  • Jody Hey

Abstract

The founding of New World populations by Asian peoples is the focus of considerable archaeological and genetic research, and there persist important questions on when and how these events occurred. Genetic data offer great potential for the study of human population history, but there are significant challenges in discerning distinct demographic processes. A new method for the study of diverging populations was applied to questions on the founding and history of Amerind-speaking Native American populations. The model permits estimation of founding population sizes, changes in population size, time of population formation, and gene flow. Analyses of data from nine loci are consistent with the general portrait that has emerged from archaeological and other kinds of evidence. The estimated effective size of the founding population for the New World is fewer than 80 individuals, approximately 1% of the effective size of the estimated ancestral Asian population. By adding a splitting parameter to population divergence models it becomes possible to develop detailed portraits of human demographic history. Analyses of Asian and New World data support a model of a recent founding of the New World by a population of quite small effective size. A new population-genetic method for assessing human demographic history reveals that the effective size of the founding population of the New World comprised less than 80 individuals.

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  • Jody Hey, 2005. "On the Number of New World Founders: A Population Genetic Portrait of the Peopling of the Americas," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(6), pages 1-1, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pbio00:0030193
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0030193
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    1. Patrick Vignaud & Philippe Duringer & Hassane Taïsso Mackaye & Andossa Likius & Cécile Blondel & Jean-Renaud Boisserie & Louis de Bonis & Véra Eisenmann & Marie-Esther Etienne & Denis Geraads & Franck, 2002. "Geology and palaeontology of the Upper Miocene Toros-Menalla hominid locality, Chad," Nature, Nature, vol. 418(6894), pages 152-155, July.
    2. Max Ingman & Henrik Kaessmann & Svante Pääbo & Ulf Gyllensten, 2000. "Mitochondrial genome variation and the origin of modern humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 408(6813), pages 708-713, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Wilkinson-Herbots, Hilde M., 2012. "The distribution of the coalescence time and the number of pairwise nucleotide differences in a model of population divergence or speciation with an initial period of gene flow," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 92-108.
    2. Costa, Rui J. & Wilkinson-Herbots, Hilde M., 2021. "Inference of gene flow in the process of speciation: Efficient maximum-likelihood implementation of a generalised isolation-with-migration model," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 1-15.
    3. Jason G. Matheny, 2007. "Reducing the Risk of Human Extinction," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(5), pages 1335-1344, October.
    4. Davison, D. & Pritchard, J.K. & Coop, G., 2009. "An approximate likelihood for genetic data under a model with recombination and population splitting," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 75(4), pages 331-345.

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