Yu-Chun, lI et al. published a paper in 2023, that looked into the link between Native Americans (NAs) mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) lineage D4h3a and the variant D4h3b which until now has been found only in East China and Thailand.
The authors noted that "D4h3 and its ancestor type D4h are relatively rare in contemporary populations (∼0.5%)" and estimated the age of the NA variant at 19,400 years (15.11 - 24.05 ky).
The interesting part is that they suggest that this haplogroup took a coastal route by sea from China to America, going through Japan's Islands. It didn't cross from Siberia and Beringia into America, walking.
"The coastal distributions of the NA (D4h3a) and Japanese lineages (D4h1a and D4h2), in combination with the Paleolithic archaeological similarities among Northern China, the Americas, and Japan, lend support to the coastal dispersal scenario of early NAs."
The authors highlight that this is a genetic source that is outside of Siberia, which provided mtDNA (a matrilineal lineage) to Native Americans. They stress that it is an "additional ancestral source for the ancestors of NAs beyond Siberia", and that "although only contributed to a small proportion of the mtDNA gene pool of NAs (D4h3a) [it] would be important in complementing the whole picture of origination histories of early NAs."
Below is an image from this paper:
Given the location of the original D4h variant, on the coast of Northern China, the authors suggest that it could have dispersed along the Pacific coastal rim: "we speculate that D4h would have documented LGM and post-LGM dispersals along the eastern Pacific coast. This echoes well with the dispersal D4h3a along the Pacific coastal path when the ice-free corridor was closed. Similarly, Y chromosome C-L1373, which probably radiated in parallel with mtDNA D4h, has also been reported in South Koreans (http://koreangenome.org/) and the Nivkh, thus lending support to a coastal population expansion scenario initiated from northern coastal China. This, together with the Paleolithic cultural affinities along the Pacific, e.g., stemmed points, and the palaeoecological feasibility of maritime dispersals (e.g., kelp highway hypothesis) lends further support to the coastal route hypothesis of early NAs."
It is also found along the coastal people in South America. Stuart J. Fiedel (source) in 2017 wrote that "D4h3a is a relatively rare clade of haplogroup D... it was reported mainly from coastal peoples, including the Fuegians of southernmost Chile, the Chumash of southern California, and the Cayapa of Ecuador The 10,300-year–old skeletal remains from On Your Knees Cave in coastal Alaska belonged to a derived clade of D4h3a."
However, Fiedel says that "the recent distribution of this clade is “deceptive” and has nothing to do with a hypothetical coastal migration".
He bases this argument on the fact that the Anzick baby had D4h3a mt DNA, and is roughly 12,900 years old, but it was found in south-central Montana, far from the Pacific coast, and that other remains are also from the interior of the continent like the Hopewell remains found in the Klunk Mounds in Illinois, and that this variant has been found in extant people of Native American origin in Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, and Mexico.
I had posted about D4h3a back in 2014 and pointed out the same idea:
"We see that the D4h3a tends to have a coastal distribution along the Pacific Ocean from Canada to Tierra del Fuego: Canada, California, Ecuador, Southern Chile and Argentina.
The Yaghan, Alakaluf, Chono, Cayapa, Chumash and the man from On Your Knees Cave, all had this haplogroup.
They all built sea-going craft: rafts, dugout canoes, bark canoes and "sewn plank" canoes.
Other groups also built canoes or rafts; the Changos in Northern Chile, the Pericú, and the Aleuts, though we cannot tell if they also carried this rare haplogroup.
But, as we will see in our next post, it is also found quite far from the Western Coast: as it was detected in ancient remains from the Klunk Mound (Illinois) and in Shandong, China.
Furthermore, the Ainu people of Japan also built "lashed-canoes" -like the Chono and the Chumash (as well as dugouts), and they may have a link with the Amerindians."
It pointed out the Chinese connection, the coastal route, and the original Japanese people, the Ainus. The second post in that 2014 series reported the Klunk Mound remains with this haplogroup variant and proposed that "This haplogroup was widespread across America (Pacific coast and well across the Rockies) and became extinct among all native groups being replaced by the other more common haplogroups now found in those groups (A, B, C, D). These surely migrated later into America." It also suggested a back-migration from America to Asia.
Let's see what future investigations find.
My nest post will be about the Cayapa people of Ecuador.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall ©
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