Ancient DNA from Early Human Burials in the Argentine Puna: Insights into Burial Practices and South American Population History

Abstract

Although the earliest archaeological sites in South America date to the late Pleistocene, little is known about the genetic makeup or mortuary behavior of early hunter-gatherer populations in South America. To help shed light on the burial practices of these hunter-gatherers, as well as the early population history of this region, we extracted ancient DNA from the remains of 13 individuals excavated from early and mid-Holocene archaeological sites in the southern Argentine Puna. These remains are from four locations in the Antofagasta de la Sierra region of northwestern Argentina, and date between 9200 and 3200 YBP. We sequenced 372 base pairs of the first hypervariable region of the mitochondrial DNA to define maternally-inherited genetic lineages, and analyzed a length dimorphism in the amelogenin gene to investigate the sex of each individual. We found that maternally related individuals were sometimes buried together, and several individuals exhibited a mtDNA lineage that is rare in indigenous American populations today. Our results shed light on the early population history of this region and help elucidate the genetic affinities between the prehistoric inhabitants of the Puna and other regions in South America.