NEW YORK -- Thousands of years ago, a teenage girl toppled into a deep hole in a Mexican cave and died. Now, her skeleton and her DNA are bolstering the long-held theory that humans arrived in the Americas by way of a land bridge from Asia, scientists say.

The girl's nearly complete skeleton was discovered by chance in 2007 by divers who were mapping water-filled caves north of the city of Tulum, in the eastern part of the Yucatan Peninsula. One day, they came across a huge chamber deep underground.


They named it Hoyo Negro, or black hole.


The divers named the skeleton Naia, after a water nymph of Greek mythology.



The analysis of her remains, reported Thursday in the journal Science by researchers, addresses a puzzle about the settling of the Americas.


But the oldest skeletons from the Americas -- including Naia's -- have skulls that look much different from those of today's native peoples. To some researchers, that suggests the first Americans came from a different place.

Naia provides a crucial link. DNA recovered from a molar contains a distinctive marker found in today's native peoples, especially those in Chile and Argentina. The genetic signature is thought to have arisen among people living in Beringia, researchers said.

That suggests that the early Americans and contemporary native populations both came from the same ancestral roots in Beringia -- not different places, the researchers concluded.