The Genetics of Who Was There

The archaeological evidence from Bluefish Caves can be read in conjunction with a growing body of ancient DNA evidence from Native American and related populations that provides independent constraints on the timing and character of the American founding.

The genetic evidence most directly relevant to the Bluefish Caves story comes from two complementary sources: ancient DNA from individuals who lived in the Americas in the millennia following the initial settlement, and ancient DNA from northeastern Asian individuals who lived during the period when the ancestral Native American population was forming.

Ancient DNA from early Native Americans has established that the founding population of the Americas was genetically distinct from any living or ancient Asian population — that the Beringian isolation proposed by the standstill hypothesis was real and long enough to allow significant genetic divergence before the dispersal.