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Inuit drawing

The connection between the native Americans and North American Inuit to the Inuit living in Greenland has long puzzled the minds of researchers. Also, the migration patterns of people over the northern hemisphere have for a long time interested people.

Now it has been found out by the research team of Professor Eske Willerslev and his PhD student Morten Rasmussen, from Centre of Excellence in GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, that people preceding the Inuit living in Greenland today crossed into the New World from north-eastern Siberia between 4,400 and 6,400 years ago in a migration wave that was independent of those of Native Americans and Inuit ancestors. The discovery was made by analysing a tuft of hair that belonged to a man from the Saqqaq culture from north-western Greenland 4,000 years ago. This discovery is an achievement both in gene technology as wel as in archaelogy and can be of significant help to scientists as they seek to determine what happened to people from extinct cultures.

For more information, please visit the news section of the University of Copenhagen