Everyone in the tropics is a skeleton. The lack of ancient skeletal remains in Neotropical regions is a result of the lack of humidity in rainforests.
The skeletons of people who died as far back as 9,600 years ago have been well preserved under the dry refuge of two rock shelters. Their bones offer a glimpse into the region's ancient genetic history, which is largely unknown.
A group of scientists have found new information about the genetic history of people in the Maya region. The paper was published in a journal. The mass migration from the south that preceded the advent of intensive maize farming was identified by the researchers. More than 50 percent of the ancestry of the people who speak the Chibchan languages are related to this migration.
The new results have the potential to revise and rewrite the history of the First Americans, according to an anthropologist at the University of Illinois.
The results fill a gap between the oldest previously studied individuals from the Maya region and the time before the settlement of Mesoamerica.
The new paper was written by the authors of the ongoing excavations led by the University of New Mexico and the University of California, Santa Barbara. The rock shelters in the Bladen Nature Reserve were used as a cemetery for thousands of years, and the researchers have been excavating them.
Dr. Prufer said that the shelters were occupied by the living who made tools and cooked. He said that a piece of a giant sloth was found at the bottom of the excavated pit.
A previously slimy layer of protection was revealed in the excavations. People used to harvest tiny Pachychilus snails for food around 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. The lower burials were protected from the Maya by a layer of snails.
The region transitioned from hunting and gathering to intensive agriculture of maize, chili peppers and manioc. In a paper published in 2020, they described evidence of maize consumption in the bones of people who lived 4,000 to 4,700 years ago.
David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, led the removal of ancient DNA from 20 individuals buried in the shelters over the course of 6,000 years. The analysis showed several human migrations into the Maya region in southeastern Mexico and northern Central America.
They found three distinct groups of Maya people who lived between 5,600 and 7,300 years ago. The first group appears to be related to a southward migration through the Americas. The second group was related to the ancestors of Chibchan speakers.
The authors theorize that the population turnover was the result of mass migration from the south.
An old assumption that farming technology spread through the Americas by the spread of crops and practices is no longer true. The authors write that the new results suggest that this migration was critical to spreading northward farming, such as a scenario in which Chibchan speakers migrated with varieties of maize, which they then cultivated and spread in local populations.
People were moving from the south to the region to carry the domesticated plants and systems of knowledge about how to grow them.
David Mora-Mar is a linguistic anthropologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an author on the paper. The idea of a Chibchan origin of maize was supported by the fact that a term for maize had been used in other languages.
The field of ancient DNA has been criticized for a lack of ethics or appropriate engagement with communities that may be descended from the ancient humans being studied.
Dr. Kennett and Dr. Prufer worked with a non-profit organization that is staffed by descendants of Maya communities. Results from studies and summaries of findings were presented to the locals. The communities wanted to learn more about the diet and family units of the ancient people living in the cave. The authors put more emphasis on these topics in the paper because of these conversations.
A genetics researcher at a university wanted to see a more detailed description of how the community influenced the paper. The process of proper engagement requires proper and transparent crediting of the community members for their participation in the research.
Ripan Malhi, a genetic anthropologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, noted that the authors uploaded the ancient DNA data to a public database with no safeguards or limitations on use.
The hypothesis that a southern migration brought maize to the Maya region is being investigated. Should we dig up our ancestors to answer research questions?
The preliminary results from the new paper were presented to the Maya communities in January 2020. Dr. Prufer said they hoped to return this summer to continue their work and keep their promise to return each year.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
