New Study Breaks Down The Theory of The First People To Inhabit America Come From Descendants Of Jomon

Skull illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/Kiwiev)

JAKARTA - A study published in the journal 'PaleoAmerica' rejects the archeological-based theory that the first people to inhabit America were descended from Jōmon. The Jōmon is maritime people who inhabit the Japanese archipelago, the Korean peninsula, and parts of the Russian Far East.

The study leverages biological anthropology by comparing DNA and dental samples from early Americans and the Jōmon. The results show that the first people in America were not direct descendants of the Jōmon, a theory that has gained credibility in recent years due to the archaeological similarities of the two groups.

Teeth have been found to be a fantastic way to record human population migrations. They are shown to have a strong hereditary genetic relationship. By studying the shape and roots of a person's teeth, researchers can determine how closely related two people are, citing Sputnik News October 15.

The research team found that Jōmon's dental samples and early American dental samples were only 7 percent similar. What biological anthropology shows is that a group of people who have yet to be identified may have been the ancestors of the first Americans.

"We found that human biology is incompatible with archaeological theory," said lead author Professor Richard Scott, a recognized expert in the study of human teeth, who led the multidisciplinary research team, cited from Sci Tech Daily, October 13.

"We're not disputing the idea that the ancient Native Americans arrived via the Pacific Northwest coast, just (breaking) their theory from the Jomon people of Japan."

"These people (Jomon) who lived in Japan 15.000 years ago are an unlikely source for the Native Americans. Neither skeletal biology nor genetics indicates a link between the Japanese and the Americans. The most likely source of the Native American population seems to be Siberian," he said.

The Jōmon people are hypothesized to be the ancestors of the first Americans, due to the similarities between their stone tools. However, unrelated groups of people have developed the same technology independently, and cultural and technological exchanges without genetic exchange have been known to occur.

Skull illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/High Contrast)

The study's authors acknowledged that the tooth samples they had from Jōmon date back about 9.000 years, while the Americas were first inhabited at least 15.000 years ago. However, the researchers don't believe large-scale genetic changes occurred during that period.

The research team doesn't believe this challenges the idea of a Northeastern maritime population and culture, similar to the Jōmon, a possible ancestor of the first Americans. It just goes to show, an unknown group of people living in Beringia, largely isolated from the rest of the population, were the first people to settle in America permanently.

Having a long career of nearly half a century, Scott, who is a professor of anthropology at the University of Nevada-Reno, has traveled all over the world, gathering vast amounts of information about human teeth around the world, both ancient and modern. He is the author of many scientific papers and several books on this subject.

This recent paper applied multivariate statistical techniques to a large sample of teeth from the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific, showing that quantitative comparisons of teeth reveal little association between Jomons and Native Americans.

And, genetics shows a similar pattern to teeth, with little connection between Jomons and Native Americans.

"This is particularly evident in the distribution of maternal and paternal lineages, which do not overlap between the early Jomon and American populations," said co-author Professor Dennis O'Rourke, who joins fellow human geneticists – and geneticists. Native American at the University of Kansas, Jennifer Raff.

"Plus, recent studies of ancient DNA from Asia reveal that the two peoples split from a common ancestor much earlier," added Professor O'Rourke.

To note, along with their co-author and co-author Justin Tackney, O'Rourke and Raff reported the first analysis of ancient DNA from Ice Age human remains in Alaska in 2016. Other co-authors include specialists in Ice Age archaeology and ecology.

And, shortly before the publication of the paper, two other new studies on the related topic were released first.