6,000-year-old skeleton discovered, DNA reveals unknown secrets!
Scientists studying ancient human remains in Colombia have discovered a population whose ancestors or modern descendants have not been identified to date.
A study published in the journal Science Advances on May 30 reported that genetic analysis of 21 human skeletons found in the Bogota Altiplano in central Colombia has shown that some of these people lived there about 6,000 years ago and were members of a unique human group.
Previous studies have mainly discussed two lineages of indigenous peoples in North and South America, whose ancestors crossed the ice bridge from Siberia to America and then spread south.
That southern lineage later split into at least three sub-lineages and spread to South America. But exactly when and how humans entered South America from Central America is still not known for sure.
Study participant Andrea Casas Vargas, a researcher at the National University of Colombia, told CNN that analysis of the skeletons showed that they carried a very unique type of DNA.
“We were very surprised, because these people are not genetically related to any other known population. We never expected to find a lineage that had never been seen before,” he said.
Vargas added that Colombia’s geographical location—considered the gateway to South America—is crucial to understanding the history of the colonization of our continent.
“This study is very important because it is the first complete genome sequence of an ancient Colombian specimen,” he added.
The results of the study raise many other questions—“Where did they come from and why did they have no successors?” Vargas said. “We are still not sure how this population disappeared—was it due to environmental changes or were they replaced by another population?”
But he hopes that future research will answer these questions. “In our next study, we will analyze archaeological samples from other regions of the country and combine them with genetic data to further enrich this initial discovery,” he said.
“Colombia is a very important place to gain a deeper understanding of the history of the settlement of South America ... but until now it has been an unknown or dark area in ancient DNA research.”
He added, "This research demonstrates how profound the impact of long-term migration and mixing on the history of settlement and how important the influence of Central America was in shaping the complex societies of North and South America."
