Founder Effects Identify Languages of the Earliest Americans

Overview

Journal Am J Biol Anthropol

Date 2024 Mar 30

PMID 38554027

Authors

Johanna Nichols

Affiliations

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Abstract

Objectives: Describe early North American linguistic population structure and chronology; align distribution of structural types with archeological and paleoclimatological evidence on the earliest settlements. Propose an improved model of early settlement and expansion and pose some priority research questions.

Materials And Methods: Classification of languages based on a tripartite geolinguistic division based on geographical and linguistic evidence. Survey of phonological and morphological patterns of 60 languages representing the structural, geographical, and genealogical diversity of North America. Survey of 16 morphological and phonological features of known or likely high stability and family-identifying value across those languages. Frequency comparison and cluster analysis to elucidate the tripartite analysis and compare to the chronology and geolinguistics implied by paleoclimatological and archeological work.

Results: There is enough evidence (linguistic, archeological, genetic, and geological) to indicate four glacial-age openings allowing entries to North America: coastal c. 24,000 and 15,000 years ago; inland c. 14,000 years ago and continuing; and coastal c. 12,000 years ago and continuing. Geographical distribution of modern languages reflects the geography and chronology of the openings and the two human and linguistic population strata they formed, and plausibly also the structural types of the founding languages.

Discussion: Improved model of North American settlement (two chronological strata, four entries); comparison to other proposed models. Further questions and research issues for linguistic, genetic, and archeological research.

Citing Articles

Founder effects identify languages of the earliest Americans.

Nichols J Am J Biol Anthropol. 2024; 186(1):e24923.

PMID: 38554027 PMC: 11775432. DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.24923.

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