The genome sequence of a male infant who lived 12,600 years ago from a Clovis burial site (shown here with poles) in Wilsall, Mont., suggests many contemporary Native Americans are direct descendants of the people who made and used Clovis tools. 
 
 A prehistoric boy's DNA now suggests that ancient toolmakers long thought of as the first Americans may serve as a kind of "missing link" between Native Americans and the rest of the world, researchers say. 
 
 The findings reveal these prehistoric toolmakers are the direct ancestors of many contemporary Native Americans, and are closely related to all Native Americans. 
 
 Scientists investigated a prehistoric culture known as the Clovis, named after sites discovered near Clovis, N.M. Centuries of cold, nicknamed the "Big Freeze," helped wipe out the Clovis, as well as most of the large mammals in North America. The artifacts of the Clovis are found south of the giant ice sheets that once covered Canada, in most of North America, though not in South America. 
 
 The stone tools of the Clovis, such as distinctive fluted or grooved spear points, date to about 12,600 to 13,000 years ago, making them the oldest widespread set of artifacts in North America. For most of the past 50 years, archaeologists thought the Clovis were the first Americans, but investigators recently uncovered evidence that humans were in the New World before Clovis, at least more than 14,000 years ago. 
 
 A nearly complete projectile point of dendritic chert, a mid-interval biface of translucent quartz, displaying relatively heavy red ochre residue and an "end-beveled" osseous rod, also exhibiting red ochre residue. These artifacts are technologically consistent with artifacts of the Clovis complex. Credit: Sarah L. Anzick 
 
 Researchers focused on bones unearthed by construction next to a rock cliff on the land of the Anzick family in central Montana. [See Images of Clovis Culture Artifacts] 
 
 "I was just a small child in 1968 when the only Clovis burial site was identified accidentally on my parents' property in Wilsall, Montana,"study co-author Sarah Anzick at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Mont., told Live Science. 
 
 Anzick boy 
 
 The so-called Anzick skeleton was found with about 125 artifacts, including Clovis fluted spear points and tools made from antlers, and covered in red ochre, a type of mineral. 
 
 "This is the oldest burial in North America, and the only known Clovis burial,"study co-author Michael Waters at Texas A&M University in College Station told Live Science. 
 
 "Genetic studies tell us these were the remains of a boy," Waters said. "Physical anthropological studies tell us he was 1 to 1.5 years old, and radiocarbon dating tells us this burial took place about 12,600 years ago, at the end of the Clovis era." It remains uncertain how this child died. 
 
 The scientists analyzed DNA from the bones. They managed to recover the first complete genome sequence of an ancient North American, despite how badly preserved the DNA in the remains were. [Top 10 Mysteries of the First Humans] 
 
 "We found the genome of this boy is closely related to all Native Americans of today than to any other peoples around the world," study co-author Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark told Live Science. "We can also see from the genome study that this Anzick population is the direct ancestor to many Native Americans to date. As such, our study is in agreement with the view that present-day Native Americans are direct descendants of the first peoples in the Americas." 
 
 Shane Doyle, study co-author at Montana State University, said, "I feel like this discovery confirms what tribes never really doubted — that we've been here since time immemorial and that all of the artifacts in the ground are remnants of our direct ancestors." 
 
 It was surprising that the Anzick lineage "is directly ancestral to so many peoples in the Americas," Willerslev said. "We don't have genetic information by any means from all tribes, but a very, very broad estimate suggests 80 percent derives from the Anzick group, which is an amazing result — almost like a missing link, if you want." 
 
 The first Clovis 
 
 The origin of the Clovis was uncertain. Although it was generally believed the Clovis ultimately derived from Asia, others suggested the ancestors of the Clovis actually may have come from southwestern Europe between 21,000 and 17,000 years ago, the so-called "Solutrean hypothesis." 
 
 This new research "has settled the long-standing debate about the origins of the Clovis," Willerslev said. "We can say the Solutrean theory suggesting Clovis originated from people in Europe doesn't fit our results." 
 
 These genetic findings "seem to fit quite nicely with an early occupation of the Americas about 2,000 years before the onset of Clovis," Waters said. "If you look at credible evidence for the peopling of the Americas, most date from a period 15,000 to 14,500 years ago," although "there are claims of occupation 20,000 to 30,000 years ago." 
 
 The scientists also discovered evidence of a deep genetic divergence that occurred between northern Native American groups and those from Central and South America that happened before the Clovis era. Specifically, although most South Americans and Mexicans are part of the Anzick lineage and therefore Clovis, northern Canadian groups belong to another lineage. 
 
 Intriguingly, while the Anzick skeleton dates back 12,600 years to the twilight of the Clovis era, the antler tools date back about 13,000 years to the dawn of the Clovis era. In addition, "genetic work shows the antler tools were made of elk, a rare animal in the plains at that time," Waters said. The difference in age between the skeleton and the antler tools, as well as the fact that the antlers were from a rare animal, suggest the antler tools were "very special ritual objects passed down for generations." 
 
 The remains will be reburied. 
 
 "We're excited and honored to work with the tribes and plan a reburial ceremony to lay this child to rest with the respect such an important part of human history deserves," Anzick said. The ceremony is planned for late spring or early summer of this year. 
 
 "The genetic information provided by the Anzick boy is part of the larger story of modern humans," Waters said. "We know that modern humans originated in Africa and 50,000 years ago spread rapidly over Europe and Asia. The last continents to be explored and settled by modern humans were the Americas. In essence, the Anzick boy tells us about the epic journey of our species." 
 
 The scientists detailed their findings in the Feb. 13 issue of the journal Nature. ||||| DNA harvested from the remains of an infant buried 13,000 years ago confirms that the earliest widespread culture in North America was descended from humans who crossed over to the New World from Asia, scientists say. 
 
 The research, detailed in this week's issue of the journal Nature, also suggests that many contemporary Native Americans are direct descendants of the so-called Clovis people, whose distinctive stone tools have been found scattered across North America and Mexico. 
 
 The origins and genetic legacy of the people who made Clovis tools have been topics of debate among scientists. While most archaeologists think that the Clovis people were descended from Asians, an alternative theory suggests that the Clovis ancestors emigrated from southwestern Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum more than 15,000 years ago. 
 
 The new findings strongly refute that idea, known as the Solutrean hypothesis, said study co-author Michael Waters, director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University. "This shows very clearly that the ancestry of the very first Americans can be traced back to Asia," Waters said. 
 
 David Anderson, an anthropologist at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, agreed. "There's been a standard model for a long time that modern Native Americans are descended from populations coming from East Asia a few thousand years before Clovis, and that's what this finding reinforces," said Anderson, who was not involved in the study. 
 
 Anthropologist Dennis Jenkins of the University of Oregon said the new study was a "really important and really well done piece of research" that opens the door for new kinds of genetic comparisons among ancient Native American remains. 
 
 "The importance of this cannot be overemphasized," said Jenkins, who also did not participate in the research. 
 
 "People have often asked me what's the relationship of the Paisley Caves"—a site in Oregon where human feces and artifacts up to 13,200 years old have been found—"to Clovis, and I've always said that would be really nice to know, but there hasn't been any Clovis DNA until now," he said. 
 
 Oldest Burial in North America 
 
 The skeleton of the Clovis child—which experts determined belonged to a young boy about one to one-and-a-half years old—was discovered in 1968 in the Anzick burial site in western Montana. Dozens of ochre-covered stone tools found at the site were consistent with Clovis technology, and radiocarbon dating revealed that the skeleton was approximately 12,600 years old. 
 
 The Anzick skeleton "is the oldest burial in North America, and the only known human burial associated with the Clovis culture," Waters said. 
 
 View Images The earliest known North American burial was found here in western Montana. PHOTOGRAPH BY MIKE WATERS 
 
 Using bone shavings collected from the skull, the scientists painstakingly reconstructed the full genome of the young Clovis child. "It was actually quite a big challenge," said study leader Eske Willerslev, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark who led the sequencing effort. "Only 1 to 2 percent of the collected DNA was human," Willerslev said. "The rest of it came from bacteria that invaded the skeleton after death." 
 
 Comparison studies of the ancient DNA showed that it was similar to the genomes of ancient people living in Siberia and the ancestors of East Asians. The team also discovered a deep genetic affinity between the boy's genetic material and those of 52 Native American populations living in South America and Canada. 
 
 "The Anzick remains share a common ancestry with almost every modern Native American group that we looked at," Waters said. 
 
 This is an incredible result, Willerslev said, because it suggests that the relatives of the Anzick child were the direct ancestors of most Native American groups living today. This would be possible, he added, if the population of humans living in the New World about 13,000 years ago was very small and every member was closely related to the others. 
 
 The scientists say they strongly suspect, but cannot yet prove, that Native Americans in the United States are also closely related to the Clovis people. Native American groups in the U.S. have been reluctant to share their DNA, or the DNA of their ancestors, with scientists. 
 
 "Unfortunately, we don't have much genetic material for native people living in the United States," Waters said. "If you look at the genetic map [of humans around the world], the U.S. is a big [blank] spot." 
 
 Jenkins of the University of Oregon said he hopes the new study will lead to further collaborations between scientists and U.S. Native American groups. 
 
 "That trust has got to be developed, and that's where Willerslev's group really excelled," Jenkins said. "We'll be better anthropologists and scientists if we view these remains more as the remains of people rather than just artifacts."
– The DNA from a single infant is shining a light on the true origins of the first Americans. The headline-generating research relies on the DNA of a child buried roughly 12,600 years ago, and establishes that the first North Americans were born to humans who came to the New World from Asia. The origins of the Clovis people, who fashioned distinctive stone tools, had been contested, with some believing they were descendants of southwestern Europeans. "This shows very clearly that the ancestry of the very first Americans can be traced back to Asia," says Michael Waters, a co-author of the study, which also indicates that the Clovis people are direct ancestors of today's Native Americans. The Clovis skeleton was uncovered in 1968 in the Anzick burial site in western Montana and belongs to a boy between 12 and 18 months; it's "the only known Clovis burial," Waters tells LiveScience. National Geographic reports that the process of collecting the DNA was no simple feat: Bone shavings from the skull were used to reconstruct the genome, but no more than 2% of the collected DNA was human. "The rest of it came from bacteria that invaded the skeleton after death," explains another researcher. The eventual genome was similar to those of ancient Siberian people and East Asians' ancestors, which seems "to fit quite nicely with an early occupation of the Americas about 2,000 years before the onset of Clovis," says Waters. But there were also similarities between it and that of 52 Native American populations from Canada and South America. One challenge in establishing whether Native Americans from the US are direct descendants of the Clovis: They've been hesitant to share their DNA, and that of their ancestors, with scientists. LiveScience notes that the child's remains will be reburied.