Genomic evidence for ancient human migration routes along South America's Atlantic coast

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Andre Luiz Campelo Dos Santos, Florida Atlantic University; Amanda Owings, Emory University; Henry Socrates Lavalle Sullasi, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco; Omer Gokcumen, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York; Michael Degiorgio, Florida Atlantic University; John Lindo, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2022-11-09
• Publisher: The Royal Society
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2022 The Authors.
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.1078
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
• Volume: 289
• Issue: 1986
• Start Page: 20221078
• End Page: 20221078
• Grant/Funding Information: This work was supported by National Science Foundation (grant nos. BCS-1926075 and BCS-1945046 to J.L., BCS-2001063, DEB-1949268 and DBI-2130666 to M.D.), National Institutes of Health (grant no. R35GM128590 to M.D.) and Fundação de Amparo à Ciência e Tecnologia de Pernambuco (grant no. BFP-0191-7.04/20 to A.L.C.d.S.).
• Keywords: History, Ancient; Animals; Neanderthals; Genomics; settlement of the Americas; Humans; Genome, Human; ancient migrations; Northeast Brazil; archaeogenomics; Human Migration; Brazil
• Research Categories: Anthropology, Archaeology

Abstract

An increasing body of archaeological and genomic evidence has hinted at a complex settlement process of the Americas by humans. This is especially true for South America, where unexpected ancestral signals have raised perplexing scenarios for the early migrations into different regions of the continent. Here, we present ancient human genomes from the archaeologically rich Northeast Brazil and compare them to ancient and present-day genomic data. We find a distinct relationship between ancient genomes from Northeast Brazil, Lagoa Santa, Uruguay and Panama, representing evidence for ancient migration routes along South America's Atlantic coast. To further add to the existing complexity, we also detect greater Denisovan than Neanderthal ancestry in ancient Uruguay and Panama individuals. Moreover, we find a strong Australasian signal in an ancient genome from Panama. This work sheds light on the deep demographic history of eastern South America and presents a starting point for future fine-scale investigations on the regional level.