News Release

Genetic diversity and continuity in Patagonia

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Shell Midden

image: This is a shell midden on Navarino Island overlooking the Beagle Channel. view more 

Credit: Ismael Martínez Rivera (Instituto de la Patagonia, Punta Arenas, Chile).

Genomic analysis of ancient and modern individuals from Patagonia shows high genetic continuity over time and suggests how ethnic groups in the region diversified, according to a study. Previous genomic studies in the Americas have focused on the timing of early migration throughout the continent and the split of major subcontinental lineages. These studies, however, have not addressed regional genetic diversity among Patagonian native groups. Mauricio Moraga and colleagues sequenced genomic data from four ancient individuals and 61 modern individuals in southcentral Chile and Patagonia. The authors found that despite the challenges to genetic continuity that came with European colonization, present-day Kawéskar and Yámana groups retain a high genetic affinity with ancient individuals, suggesting high genetic continuity over the past 1,000 years. The authors also found that maritime groups were genetically equidistant from the previously published genome of an ancient individual from Tierra del Fuego, suggesting that the maritime groups split from the individual's terrestrial group, possibly around the time Tierra del Fuego was isolated from the mainland by the Magellan Strait. According to the authors, the results offer insight into the origins and development of maritime cultures in Patagonia.

Article #17-15688: "Genomic insights into the origin and diversification of late maritime hunter-gatherers from the Chilean Patagonia," by Constanza de la Fuente et al.

MEDIA CONTACT: Mauricio Moraga, University of Chile, Santiago, CHILE; e-mail: <mmoraga@med.uchile.cl>

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