2014/03/12 by Mark A. Sicoli, Gary Holton · 67 citations
Social Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Computer Science · #Language and cultural evolution #Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies #Natural Language Processing Techniques #Beringia #Biological dispersal #Old World #Phylogenetic tree #Population #Central asia #Geography #Evolutionary biology #Biology #Ecology #Demography #Archaeology #Sociology #Physical geography
paper · pdf · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0091722
published in PLoS ONE 9(3), e91722 (Public Library of Science)
openalex publication_date 2014/03/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/08
Recent arguments connecting Na-Dene languages of North America with Yeniseian languages of Siberia have been used to assert proof for the origin of Native Americans in central or western Asia. We apply phylogenetic methods to test support for this hypothesis against an alternative hypothesis that Yeniseian represents a back-migration to Asia from a Beringian ancestral population. We coded a linguistic dataset of typological features and used neighbor-joining network algorithms and Bayesian model comparison based on Bayes factors to test the fit between the data and the linguistic phylogenies modeling two dispersal hypotheses. Our results support that a Dene-Yeniseian connection more likely represents radiation out of Beringia with back-migration into central Asia than a migration from central or western Asia to North America.