Monday, April 4, 2016

ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA—Analysis of DNA samples from 92 pre-Columbian mummies and skeletons, ranging in age from 500 to 8,600 years old, suggests that European colonization wiped out their genetic lineages. “Surprisingly, none of the genetic lineages we found in almost 100 ancient humans were present, or showed evidence of descendants, in today’s Indigenous populations,” Bastien Llamas of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) at the University of Adelaide said in a press release. Llamas and his team of researchers think that a major portion of isolated groups of early Americans died out after European colonization. “This closely matches the historical reports of a major demographic collapse immediately after the Spaniards arrived in the late 1400s,” he said. The study also yielded information about the arrival of the first Americans. “Our genetic reconstruction confirms that the first Americans entered around 16,000 years ago via the Pacific coast, skirting around the massive ice sheets that blocked an inland corridor route which only opened much later. They spread southward remarkably swiftly, reaching southern Chile by 14,600 years ago,” added Alan Cooper, director of ACAD. For more on the earliest Americans, go to "America, in the Beginning."