Uses and limitations of genetic data relating to Athapaskan migrations: a reply to Seymour.

Abstract

We appreciate a number of the points that Seymour (2009) makes in her article, ‘‘Comments on genetic data relating to Athapaskan migrations: Implications of the Malhi et al. study for the Apache and Navajo.’’ As molecular anthropologists, we are aware that treating individuals sampled from linguistic or cultural groups as representatives of biological populations is an imperfect approximation to sampling biological populations. Moreover, as Seymour points out, it is dangerous to assume that a limited sampling from a subgroup is representative of the group as a whole, and we should have been more cautious about making inferences regarding all of Southern Athapaskan prehistory from a limited sample of the Navajo and Apache. We also agree with Seymour that, undoubtedly, our research would have benefited from closer interactions with archaeologists and/or Native Americans in the Southwest or Subarctic. Collecting genetic samples from Native American communities to investigate population prehistory can be a formidable challenge, because of the history of coloniza