The DNA of a baby boy that died 13,000 years ago in what is now Montana has been recovered and scientist have been able to resolve a debate regarding the lineage of indigenous Americans in the last continent to inhabited be by modern humans.
The boy was a part of the Clovis culture that existed approximately 12,600 to 13,000 years ago in North America, according to AFP.
He was dug up by accidents at a construction site back in 1968, and is the oldest skeleton ever found in America.
Other people from his village stained his body with red ochre before entombing him with artifacts that had probably been with his family for generations, according to the AFP.
Scientists have been able to decode the child's genome, and now an international team of "experts" believe they can confirm the first modern Native Americans are decedents of the first people to have settled on the continent from Asia approximately 15,000 years ago.
This would mean they are not migrants from Europe, according to AFP.
"The genetic data confirms that the ancestors of this boy originated from Asia," said Michael Waters of the Texas-based Center for the Study of the First Americans, who co-authored the report, according to AFP.
Analysis showed the child was 12-18 months when he died.
"The study does not support the idea that the first Americans originated from Europe," said Waters. "A single migration of humans introduced the majority of the founding population of the Americas south of the ice sheet at the close of the last Ice Age."
Some 125 artifacts, including spear points and tools made of elk antler, were found along with the child.
Some experts believe Clovis ancestors originated in east Asia, before crossing the Bering Strait.
The findings were reported in the journal Nature recently.
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