Indigenous Peoples of The Pacific Northwest Coast - Genetics

Genetics

For more details on this topic, see Indigenous Amerindian genetics.

Haplogroup Q1a3a is a Y chromosome haplogroup generally associated with the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The Q-M3 mutation appears on the Q lineage roughly 10 to 15 thousand years ago, as the migration throughout the Americas was underway by the early Paleo-Indians. The Na-Dené, Inuit and Indigenous Alaskan populations exhibit haplogroup Q (Y-DNA) mutations, however, which are distinct from other indigenous Amerindians along with various mtDNA mutations. This suggests that the migrant ancestors of the current inhabitants of the northern extremes of North America and Greenland derived from later migrant populations.