69: DAVID MELTZER: PEOPLING OF THE AMERICAS Peopling of the Americas as Inferred from Ancient Genomics 1. Professor David Meltzer, an archaeologist, discusses how genomics provides a breakthrough over earlier methods like mitochondrial DNA by using the entir
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 10 November 2025
⏱️ 13 minutes
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Summary
Peopling of the Americas as Inferred from Ancient Genomics
1. Professor David Meltzer, an archaeologist, discusses how genomics provides a breakthrough over earlier methods like mitochondrial DNA by using the entire genome to reveal the complex tapestry of ancestry, showing mixing and cross-breeding among populations. Ancestral Native Americans arose from the admixture of Ancient North Siberians and an East Asian population around 26,000 to 24,000 years ago. During the last glacial maximum (23,000–19,000 years ago), lower sea levels exposed the land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska, and these distinctive ancestral groups became isolated due to harsh glacial cold, positioning themselves to move further south.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor. |
| 0:09.5 | Here's John Batchelor. |
| 0:11.5 | This is CBS, I on the world. |
| 0:13.5 | I'm John Bachelor, and I welcome Professor David Meltzer. |
| 0:16.7 | David is here to help me understand a new paper in Nature Magazine. |
| 0:21.9 | Professor Meltzer is the Department of Anthropology at SMU in Dallas, Texas. |
| 0:26.4 | He is also an archaeologist, and so he's guiding me through a story that is fresh, very fresh. |
| 0:34.1 | The title of the piece in Nature magazine, the premier magazine in Europe, matching science magazine here for peer-reviewed articles, is peopling of the Americas as inferred from ancient genomics. |
| 0:47.3 | Genomics is the breakthrough here. |
| 0:49.0 | This is frontline thinking about the people of North America who are here when the Europeans arrived 14th, 15th century, |
| 0:57.0 | maybe before the Vikings. |
| 0:59.3 | And what genomics tells us about the scattering of people across the North and South America |
| 1:05.6 | and Central America from the last glacial maximum until about a thousand years, two thousand years ago in |
| 1:14.1 | the Mesoamerica. |
| 1:15.3 | That huge range. |
| 1:17.4 | And, Professor, a very good evening to you. |
| 1:19.5 | Thank you for this. |
| 1:20.3 | Congratulations. |
| 1:21.2 | You and your colleague, S.K. Wilslev, published this piece. |
| 1:25.5 | So we need to do some definitions. |
| 1:28.0 | First, if I understand correctly in the explication, here to four, what we had for evidence |
| 1:33.9 | of people's origins, their lineage, was mitochondrial DNA, uniparental through the mother. |
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