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. 2021 Apr 6;118(14):e2025739118.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.2025739118.

Deep genetic affinity between coastal Pacific and Amazonian natives evidenced by Australasian ancestry

Marcos Araújo Castro E Silva  1 , Tiago Ferraz  1 , Maria Cátira Bortolini  2 , David Comas  3 , Tábita Hünemeier  4
Affiliations

Deep genetic affinity between coastal Pacific and Amazonian natives evidenced by Australasian ancestry

Marcos Araújo Castro E Silva et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

Different models have been proposed to elucidate the origins of the founding populations of America, along with the number of migratory waves and routes used by these first explorers. Settlements, both along the Pacific coast and on land, have been evidenced in genetic and archeological studies. However, the number of migratory waves and the origin of immigrants are still controversial topics. Here, we show the Australasian genetic signal is present in the Pacific coast region, indicating a more widespread signal distribution within South America and implicating an ancient contact between Pacific and Amazonian dwellers. We demonstrate that the Australasian population contribution was introduced in South America through the Pacific coastal route before the formation of the Amazonian branch, likely in the ancient coastal Pacific/Amazonian population. In addition, we detected a significant amount of interpopulation and intrapopulation variation in this genetic signal in South America. This study elucidates the genetic relationships of different ancestral components in the initial settlement of South America and proposes that the migratory route used by migrants who carried the Australasian ancestry led to the absence of this signal in the populations of Central and North America.

Keywords: Australasian; Native Americans; Pacific coastal route; genetics; settlement of South America.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Relative patterns of genetic affinity of Australasians among Native American groups. (A) Maximum Z values per population interpolated with the inverse distance weighting method. (B) Distribution of all estimated Z values (y axis) for each “Z” population (x axis) as violin and box plots. In B, the black dots represent outliers, and the red dashed lines indicate the Z-value thresholds of Z = −3 and Z = 3.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Excess affinity of Native Americans with Australasians. The y axis indicates the group affiliation of the individual used at the Z position of the statistic (excess in allele sharing). The x axis represents the group affiliation of the individual at the Y position of the statistic (deficit in allele sharing). Estimates were clustered by groups, and the number of significant tests was weighted by the number of individuals in the comparison.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Admixture graph modeling of the Y-population contribution to Amazonia and Pacific coast. (A) Previously published model proposed by Skoglund et al. (2). To investigate these genetic affinities, we first create (B and C) admixture graphs adding the Pacific coastal groups Sechura, Chotuna, and Narihuala (Pac_Cos) to the previous models, and (D) add Xavánte and the Pacific coast, followed by Suruí and Karitiana.
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