Na-Dene

Results show an early dispersal of Na-Dene along the North American coast with a Yeniseian back migration through Siberia and a later dispersal of North American interior Na-Dene languages.

(18) Other early studies, which included work by Ward, Torroni, and their colleagues, suggested that the Americas were peopled by two separate Amerindian migrations followed by a Na-Dene migration.

The Eskimo-Aleut group occupied the northernmost sections of North America; the Na-dene were just south of the Eskimo-Aleuts; and American Indians populated the area south of the ancient ice sheets.

Zegura, divided our Indigenous American peoples into three separate populations which he labels "Amerind," "Na-Dene" and "Eskimo-Aleut." The Amerind group includes most of our nations from Canada through southernmost South America.

The second and third migrations have left an impact only in Arctic populations that speak Eskimo-Aleut languages and in the Canadian Chipewyan who speak a Na-Dene language.

1 Early mitochondrial DNA analyses suggested three waves of migration that correspond to three Native American language groups--Amerind (brown arrow), Na-Dene (blue arrow) and Eskaleut (orange arrow).