A few days ago a really fascinating story was known. In 1958 someone found a skull in China dating 300,000 years, and after a recent study a surprising conclusion was reached: that “homo” did not look like any that we know. Something similar has happened in Colombia. 21 human remains have scientists with frown.
Crossing roads without heirs. Colombia, an essential point of passage in the migration of Homo Sapiens from Central America to the south of the continent more than 14,500 years ago, has now revealed a forgotten chapter of its human past. An international team of researchers has recovered the DNA of 21 human remains found in five archaeological sites of the Cundiboyacense Altiplano, a plateau located in the center of the country.
What they discovered is amazing: an old group that inhabited this region about 6,000 years ago that has no genetic relationship with any current living population. Its lineage disappeared completely, without a trace in later generations. Plus: It is an extra rarity in South America, where the genetic persistence of native peoples usually has continuity, even partial.
The study compared old DNA with more recent records
Two worlds separated by millennia. According to the analysis, this first community was composed of hunters-gatherers, and its presence was completely extinguished about 4,000 years before the arrival of a new genetically different human group, which was established in the same region approximately 2,000 years ago. The latter, direct ancestors of some current indigenous populations, probably spoke chibcha languages and showed a more developed material culture: ceramics, advanced agriculture and a sedentary way of life.
This group remained in the area until European colonization in the 16th century. The demographic replacement was absolute: the DNA of the ancient hunters-gatherers did not survive in any hereditary line of the subsequent inhabitants of the Altiplano. For scientists, this suggests a complete population change in the area of Bogotá, an unusual phenomenon that raises more questions than answers.
Genetic puzzle. The discovery not only highlights the total disappearance of a human group, but also clarifies the genetic history of South America, which was believed more linear. Previous studies had already suggested unexpected connections between old South American populations and regions as remote as Australia.
The Colombian case reinforces the idea that the first migrations south of the continent were more complex and diverse than was thought. The fact that this ancestral population does not have modern correlation in the current DNA suggests that, at some point, conflicts, epidemics or other processes still unknown could have caused their disappearance, without the possibility of miscegenation or genetic absorption by later peoples.
Human map What the investigation is quite clear is that Colombia, located in the narrow step between Central and South America, is and was key to understanding how the continent was populated. The finding of these genomes (the first old ones published in the country’s history) opens new ways to investigate the prehistoric settlement of the region and shows how much it still remains to be discovered.
That a complete human lineage has been extinguished without leaving genetic offspring raises unknowns as deep as revealing, and makes the Colombian highlands a territory loaded with enigmas to be resolved. As the researchers point out, it is really just the beginning: under the Andean surface, most likely, secrets still rest to rewrite the human history of South America.
Imagen | Pexels, Krettek et al., Science Advances, 2025
In WorldOfSoftware | In 1958 we found a skull with 300,000 years in China. The problem is that we do not know what “homo” belongs
In WorldOfSoftware | The “ghost species” with which our ancestors were settled and disappeared without (almost) leave a trace
