{"id":104479,"date":"2025-05-15T21:00:56","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T21:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/104479\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T21:00:56","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T21:00:56","slug":"dna-study-fills-gaps-in-indigenous-americans-ancestry-dw-05-15-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/104479\/","title":{"rendered":"DNA study ‘fills gaps’ in Indigenous Americans’ ancestry \u2013 DW \u2013 05\/15\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first people to colonize the Americas\u00a0migrated from modern-day Russia about\u00a020,000 to 30,000 years ago,<\/a>\u00a0a new study has\u00a0found.<\/p>\n

Published on May 15 in the journal\u00a0Science<\/a>, the study\u00a0suggests the languages \u200b\u200band traditions of Indigenous groups living in the Americas today can be traced back to these early settlers.\u00a0Traces of\u00a0their cultures exist in the genes of modern Indigenous groups.<\/p>\n

The study also found the early settlers split into groups that became isolated in different environmental settings. The findings\u00a0provide\u00a0a new\u00a0genetic<\/a>\u00a0and cultural understanding of present-day South American communities, said the researchers.<\/p>\n

“[It fills] key gaps in our understanding of how the diverse populations of present-day South America came to be,” said Elena Gusareva, the study’s lead author, who is based\u00a0at Nanyang Technological University,\u00a0Singapore.<\/p>\n

Gusareva said the participants in the study had been “deeply motivated” to uncover their people’s history.\u00a0This showed the importance of ancestral knowledge for people’s identities, Gusareva said.<\/p>\n

The researcher cited an “urgent case” involving the Kawesqar people\u00a0of Patagonia, whose population and 6,000-year-old cultural heritage is in danger of disappearing:\u00a0“This genetic record is one of the last chances to preserve their legacy.”<\/p>\n

Eurasian roots of Indigenous Americans<\/p>\n

Gusareva and\u00a0colleagues sequenced the genomes of 1,537 individuals from 139 ethnic groups in northern Eurasia and the Americas.<\/p>\n

They compared these with millions of tiny variations in modern-day Indigenous people’s genes to ancient\u00a0DNA<\/a>\u00a0from the first peoples to\u00a0arrive in the Americas. They said this created\u00a0a genomic dataset from people previously underrepresented in ancestral science<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tracing how these genetic codes changed in people from different geographical regions and various Indigenous groups allowed them to study patterns of population history, migration\u00a0and adaptation over thousands of years.<\/p>\n

“Our genetic analysis of Indigenous groups is crucial because their genomes carry unique insights into the earliest human history in the region,” said\u00a0Gusareva’s colleague,\u00a0Hie Lim Kim,\u00a0a geneticist at Nanyang Technological University.<\/p>\n

Their analysis\u00a0appears to corroborate\u00a0existing archeological evidence, showing the first peoples in the Americas diverged from North Eurasians between 19,300 and 26,800 years ago.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0dates are “consistent with a large body of archeological evidence,” said Francisco Javier Aceituno, an archeologist at the University of Antioquia, Colombia, who was not involved in the new study.<\/p>\n

By comparing genetic datasets, the researchers said they had been able to find the closest living relatives of Indigenous North Americans are west Beringian groups, such as the Inuit, Koryaks, and Luoravetlans. Beringia was an ice bridge between modern-day Russia and North America during\u00a0the last ice age<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"RockTraces of Indigenous Americans’ migration through the Americas exist in the rock art in caves and on cliff faces, as seen here at the Chiribiquete National Park in Guaviare, Cerro Azul, ColombiaImage: Diego Camilo Carranza Jimenez\/AA\/picture alliance <\/p>\n

The foundation of South America’s Indigenous groups<\/p>\n

Gusareva and Kim’s\u00a0study\u00a0found that after the early settlers had arrived in South America and then split into four distinct groups \u2014 Amazonian, Andean, Chaco Amerindian\u00a0and Patagonian\u00a0\u2014 they each became isolated in different environments.<\/p>\n

Aceituno told DW these groups of hunter-gatherers probably divided “to occupy new territories, generate new family groups and avoid isolation.”<\/p>\n

Gusareva believes the new genetic data shows natural barriers, such as\u00a0the\u00a0Amazon rainforest<\/a>\u00a0and the Andes mountain range, led to the isolation of these Indigenous groups.<\/p>\n

“This made their genetic makeup more uniform, similar to what is seen in island populations,” Gusareva said.<\/p>\n

Indigenous media makers about the importance of their work

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/video><\/p>\n

Ancient gene mutations affect modern South Americans’ health<\/p>\n

The study also found Indigenous groups have distinct genetic traits, which may have evolved through their adapting to\u00a0extreme environments and long-term isolation from other groups.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For instance, a group of Andean highlanders carries a gene mutation that helps them\u00a0adapt to low levels of oxygen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mutations in the gene EPAS1 stimulate new blood vessel formation and produce more red blood cells. EPAS1 mutations have also been found in people from Tibet.<\/p>\n

“As people adapted to diverse and often extreme environments \u2014 like high altitudes or cold climates \u2014 their genomes evolved accordingly,” said Kim.<\/p>\n

Previous studies<\/a>\u00a0have found genetic variations among Brazil’s Indigenous groups may cause them to respond differently to medication\u00a0for blood clots or high cholesterol.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kim said the new research had revealed more than 70 gene variations that could increase [people’s] vulnerability to emerging infectious diseases: “Many of these populations are already small. It’s critical to provide tailored healthcare and disease prevention efforts to support their well-being.”<\/p>\n

Edited by: Matthew Ward Agius<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first people to colonize the Americas\u00a0migrated from modern-day Russia about\u00a020,000 to 30,000 years ago,\u00a0a new study has\u00a0found.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3846],"tags":[267,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-104479","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-genetics","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114513869965013797","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}