New developments in the origins and evolution of Native American populations

The history and origins of the earliest Americans have commanded the interest of anthropologists for many years. The following factors stimulate this interest. North and South America were the last large uninhabited landmasses that ice age humans settled. The two continents span all latitudes, harbor all ecological zones, and contain many natural barriers to the free movement of people. Despite the barriers to free movement, archaeology shows that Native American people mastered these challenges and filled the landscape in a narrow time window. By the time Christopher Columbus arrived, Native Americans possessed a rich diversity of cultures and languages that likely arose in situ during the course of population growth and adaptation to new environments. Genetics and physical anthropology have played prominent roles in studies of the origin and evolution of Native American populations (Spuhler: Genetic, linguistic, and geographical distances in native North Americans. In: Huizinga J, editor. The assessment of population affinities in man. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979; Crawford: The origins of native Americans: evidence from anthropological genetics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998; Salzano and Bortolini: The evolution and genetics of Latin American populations. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). The following six articles in this issue present the leading edge of genetic studies. Each paper was presented in a symposium entitled ‘New Developments in the Origins and Evolution of Native American Populations’ that was held at the 79th annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, held in Albuquerque, NM, April 15, 2010. The symposium was dedicated to Francisco M. Salzano who has been a prominent leader of studies on Native Americans for the past 50 years.