ARCHAEOLOGISTS have found 6,000-year-old skeletons from Colombia with ancient DNA that could rewrite human history.
The incredible remains belonging to hunter-gatherers at the ancient preceramic site of Checua don’t have DNA that matches any known Indigenous population in the region today.
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Their bombshell genetic signature has revealed a distinct – and extinct – lineage.
This could have descended all the way from the earliest humans to reach South America.
This lineage diverged early on and remained genetically isolated for thousands of years.
Researchers have managed to reconstruct a rare genetic timeline by anaylysing DNA from 21 people who lived in the Bogota Altiplano between roughly 6,000 to 500 years ago.
Extracted from bones and teeth, the DNA samples showed that the oldest people at Checua carried a distinctive ancestral signature.
This has completely disappeared from the modern gene pool.
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.”
Early people weren’t related to other ancient groups in South America genetically.
They also didn’t share ancestry with early North American populations.
Krettek added: “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.”
Roughly a whopping 2,000 years ago, the genetic landscape of the Bogota highlands shifted.
The distinctive lineage discovered in the earliest Checua remains had vanished and replaced by a new population.
Their DNA bear close similarity to the ancient Panamanians and modern Chibchan-speaking groups in Costa Rica and Panama.
Co-author and researcher at Universidad Nacional de Colombia Andrea Casas-Vargas explained how the bizarre disappearance of the original population’s genetic traces is rare in South America.
She said: “Up to now, strong genetic continuity has been observed in the population of the Andes and the southern cone of South America over long time periods and cultural changes.”
As new arrivals came to the Bogota highlands, the population changed significantly as time went on.
But the shift didn’t come with any signs of war or invasion, nor violence, according to the archeologists.
The change may have just occurred gradually through migration, cultural exchange, or intermarriage.
Therefore, the Checua people’s unique DNA faded – and eventually vanished.
The unbelievable discovery is the first example of Colombia looking at ancient DNA – but experts say it’s just the beginning.
Surrounding regions like western Columbia, Venezuela, and Ecuador have never received genetical analysation.
Krettek said: “Ancient DNA from those areas will be crucial in understanding how humans migrated into South America.”
