But not so fast. The maps below show patterns that appear more likely to have originated in west Asia and Europe. It is possible that migrants originated in Asia and went by land to America but died out in east Asia and northwest North America, leaving little trace. This seems unlikely.
The maps above shows the distribution of the male Y Chromosome "R" Y-DNA, passed from father to son. Most sources contend that this Haplogroup came about in Native Americans recently from post Columbian American colonists.
Some R-1 no doubt did come from recent European migrants. But the concentration in northeast North America seems too high for all of it to be Post Columbian. And there is little reason to think that the percentage of R-1 would be so much higher in northeast North America than in other parts of North and South America.
Wikapedia addresses this issue
A second theory that was introduced during European colonization[42] can be excluded for the following reasons:[45]
- SNP array-based analyses using a data set masked for inferred admixed genomic regions19 gave no matches with recent European admixture.[45]
- Allele frequency-based D-statistic tests20 show that all 48 tested modern-day populations with First American ancestry19 are equally related to MA-1 within the resolution of our data, which would not be expected if the signal was driven by recent European admixture.[45][46]
- MA-1 is closer to Native Americans than any of the 15 tested European populations.[45][47]
Central and South America have had longer post Columbian histories of intermarriage than northeast North America but R1 barely shows up there.
The map above shows the world distribution of haplogroup X, the fifth founding maternal lineage in America. Unlike haplogroups A through D, it is found primarily in West Asia, Europe, and North America. And unlike haplogroups A through D which are distributed throughout North and South Ameria, it is found primarily in northeast North America.
It was initially thought that persons with this haplogroup were descended from post Columbian European immigrants but now it has been determined that the haplogroup is very old in North America and much different from the X found in Asia and Europe.
The two maps above depict minor DNA lineages in Native Americans that originated in West Asia and Europe and are now primarily in northeast North America. It is possible that the came from Siberia and then died out in Asia and for some reason did not expand into South America. But it seems most likely to me that they got to North America by crossing the Atlantic.
The alternate assumes that they immigrated across Asia and western North America but left little genetic trace of their passage in Asia and northwest North America. And unlike the other Native American groups they are concentrated in northeast North America.
I am certainly not a DNA expert. But I can read maps.
Most of the DNA evidence supports immigration from Siberia into the Americas and most Native Americans are descended from these people.
But the male line R1-M173 and the female line X are in my opinion more likely the result of seaborne expansion from west Asia and/or Europe into the new world.
And the two expansions from Asia and Europe/the middle east into America likely occurred at roughly the same time, with the R-M173 and X probably coming into America shortly after the main Native American lineages arrived from northwest Asia. The two peoples would have expanded into their respective territories and then met in the middle, where they blocked further expansion and where over time there has been significant gene exchange. The immigration from Asia continued on to populate central and South America.
Many people believe that the R1-M173 in Native American populations is post Columbian. But it is hard to see that this would have been so strong in northeast North America but not elsewhere.
