Antiquity of mtDNA lineage D1g from the southern cone of South America supports pre Clovis migration

Abstract

The southern cone of South America has been an important source of information regarding the early peopling of the Americas. The discovery of the Monte Verde site was revolutionary; it led to wide acceptance of the pre-Clovis hypothesis and its corollary, the coastal migration route. Although numerous additional pre-Clovis sites have been reported in South America, debate continues about the timing of the earliest human migration. Perhaps because of the paucity of very early sites in North America, researchers there are increasingly focused on the genomic evidence. The mitochondrial subhaplogroup D1g described in 2012 and found in Amerindian populations of southern Chile and Argentina, represents today as Monte Verde did before, an interesting paradox that has not yet received much attention. The age calculated for D1g, between 25,000 and 19,000 cal yr BP is extremely old for a South American mitochondrial subhaplogroup. The anomalous age of this haplogroup does not fit the currently accepted framework for the other mtDNA haplogroups in the Americas. In this article I compare D1g old age with those from other published D phylogenies, using the rho calculation methodology in order to test the reliability of this older age estimate. Might this lineage be evidence for an early pre-Clovis migration?