Unangan (Aleut) Migrations

Abstract

There were diverse causes and demographic and evolutionary consequences of migration of the Unangan (a.k.a. Aleut) people in their expansion from Siberia through the Aleutian archipelago. The causes included subsistence patterns, volcanic eruptions that destroyed island econiches, climatic changes that calmed the seas and made interisland migrations possible, and cultural contacts as well as forcible relocations. The consequences of the migrations included an intimate relationship between genetics, as revealed by mitochondrial DNA, and geography; loss of genetic diversity due to population fission along kin groups; creation of genetic barriers due to periodic climatic limitations to migrations; population genetic differentiation due to kin migration and founder effect; and admixture with Russian administrators and military in the western and central islands and with fishermen of English and Scandinavian ancestry in the eastern islands.