Science
6,000‑Year‑Old Skeletons In Colombia Reveal Lost Human Lineage, Challenging Migration Theories
DNA from 6,000-year-old skeletons discovered by archaeologists has the potential to alter our understanding of human history.
New information that has the potential to completely alter human history doesn’t come around very often.
However, it just occurred.
Researchers have found that the DNA found in the remains of hunter-gatherers in Checua, Colombia, does not match that of any contemporary Indigenous community in the area.
The remains of people from a lineage that is now completely extinct in the world can be located at the ancient preceramic site. These remains may provide us with further information about the first humans to arrive in South America.
The archaeologists claim that the DNA lineage discovered in the 21 bodies traces back to the Bogotá Altiplano people between 6,000 and 500 years ago, providing them with a unique genetic timeline.
The ancient individuals at Checua had a unique ancestral signature that has been completely eradicated from the modern world, according to samples of DNA taken from their bones and teeth.
Kim-Louise Krettek, lead author and a PhD student at the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution in Germany, said, “This area is key to understanding how the Americas were populated.”
“It was the land bridge between North and South America and the meeting point of three major cultural regions: Mesoamerica, Amazonia, and the Andes.”
The genomic investigation revealed that the early inhabitants of the area had no genetic kinship with any other ancient South American population or with any group in North America.
Krettek explained, “Our results show that the Checua individuals derive from the earliest population that spread and differentiated across South America very rapidly.”
“We couldn’t find descendants of these early hunter-gatherers of the Colombian high plains, the genes were not passed on.”
“That means in the area around Bogotá there was a complete exchange of the population.”
According to the study, the Bogotá highlands saw a dramatic genetic shift around 2,000 years ago, which may have been the cause of the disappearance of the Checua natives and their subsequent replacement by a new ethnic group.
What happened to their ancestors is unknown, but this new population shares DNA similarities with the ancient Panamanians and contemporary Chibchan-speaking communities in Costa Rica and Panama.
Krettek clarified that since there was no evidence of conflict or violence being the reason for their extinction, they might have relocated and lost their genes as they bred.
“In addition to technological developments such as ceramics, the people of this second migration probably also brought the Chibchan languages into what is present-day Colombia. Branches of this language family are still spoken in Central America today,” said co-author Andrea Casas-Vargas of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
“That genetic traces of the original population disappear completely is unusual, especially in South America,” said Casas-Vargas.
However, there is little information available regarding genetic shifts and migration because western Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador have not yet undergone genetic analysis.
Krettek said, “Ancient DNA from those areas will be crucial in understanding how humans migrated into South America.”
The study, which is the first of its kind, analysed genetic samples from five archaeological sites and generated something amazing. It was published in the journal Science Advances.
Senior study author Professor Cosimo Posth, from the University of Tübingen, said as per Phys Org: “These are the first ancient human genomes from Colombia ever to be published.”
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