Extraordinary travel to the old people of South America

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A central point of the person’s description is our species’ in the worldwide spread. From our homelands in Africa, our ancestors went to Europe, Asia, Australian And, in the end, in America. The last continent they reached was South America (outside Antarctica, but we could not worry about that).

It is a curiously unreliable chapter of our story. Many research efforts have been considered when people first entered Europe, Asia and North America, but ignored the first arrival of South America.

That is shown in my own output: Looks back to our human story’s archive, I know the last time I wrote in southern America June 2023.

However that began to change. At 15 in May, Science Published a large genetic study of South American, which extends a lot of lights in the early piercing of the continent. It reveals four-way population separation as groups scattered in different regions of landmass. It also deals with an emerging story on extraordinary trips – and many risks sometimes involved in moving a new continent.

The upper and windy road

If you know that Homo Sapiens First changed in Africa, and then see a globe, apparently going to South America is an important task. The highest atlantic ocean height lies between two continents and perhaps an impossible obstacle. So, people ended around.

Of course, it is not planned. No one knows then the South America has already existed. People continue to wander the horizon until the next place. That took them from Africa in the southwestern Asian, and from every corner of Eurasia. Some people ending northeast Asia, in the region we now call Chukotka in Russian Far East.

From there, it was a brief hope of what we called Alaska, in the far northwest of North America. People arrive there At least 16,000 years ago. Now, there is a sea of ​​crossing for about 82 kilometers, called Bering Strait. But thousands of years ago the climate is cooler and the sea level is lower, the soil is more exposed – including a place called Beringia, who links Asia and North America. People may have walked, that they didn’t know they did anything important.

In its line, a study published in May found that Horses often move between North America and Asia by Beringia between 50,000 and 13,000 years ago. If horses can make this journey, people may also be.

So a bacterial type caused by leprosy. In late May, we learned that Mycobacterium leromatosis HISTORY Live and Departure in America About 10,000 years.

Anything else, groups of first Americans have made their south side. Some may use boats to travel to the Pacific Coast, while others go to the ground. Wherever, people finally find their way to the southern end of South America.

These populations leave an archaeological archeological record. A study published in February described a large collection of artefact From the Department of Tacuembemó in Uruguay from 10,000 to 11,000 years ago.

Who are the first South Americans? That’s where new genetic analysis comes.

In motion

Researchers are led Hie Lim Kim In Nanyang Technological University in Singapore Compilet Genomic Data From 1537 people belonging to 139 ethnic groups. Others from the northern Eurasian populations may be related to those who entered America, and others from America, including South America.

“We show this humongous history history,” Kim said.

Between 13,900 and 10,000 years ago, the first people in South America separated four groups with a different genetic variant. All four genetic patterns can still be found in South American today.

It is “very difficult” to come in terms to describe it, as Kim. The study indicates genetic differences between populations, but it should not match cultural characteristics. “We do not mean it as their culture or language,” he said, but the ancestor.

With the mind of the caveat, Kim’s team puts four Amazonian groups, Anean, Choco Americian and Patincanian. Names are related to regions where signic signals are strong today. For example, the ancestor of Amazonia was now found by the people living in the Amazon Rainforest, Andean at the Andes Mountain Range, and the Sound of Sound, Tun, Patotionia in the year Argentina. The ancestor of Choco Amerindian today was found in the dry chaco, a regional parts of Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay. “They are horsemen who live in the desert,” Kim said.

After groups that distort, there is no indication that it is important to be destroyed between them. It’s possible “they don’t meet again”, says Kim. Geographical barriers such as Andes may have contributed to this solitude.

However, this is never the whole story, says Kim. May have multiple groups than these four. “We have a very limited sample from Brazil,” he said, “and then there are many ethnic groups on Amazon Jungle.”

Other studies from the last few months indication of the richness of stories that have not been found. One, from March, looked at archaeological evidence from “Southern Cone“: The region, south of the 22th resemblance, including southern Brazil, Paraguay, Chile and Uruguay. There, giant gilyptodos are called gales of glyptodos, for food and making bone items.

Another study published in March describes how A people called Guaraní makes a big journey across South Americatraveling 2500 km from southwestern Amazonia to southeast South America. After hundreds of years, they have reached the Río de la Planto Estuary at the East Coast, which is now the place of Buenos Aires and Montevideo.

The most recent study, published in late May, highlighting the dangers of moving a new place. The ancient DNA from Colombia is revealed a to-day unknown population of hunter-gatherers Who lives in Bogotá Altiplano, a plate on average 2600 meters above sea level, about 6000 years ago. In 2000 years ago, they were replaced by populations from Central America, and now there is no tracking of their genetic makeup with any population solved – the unknown cause, the group does not survive.

South America is a big place, and we just scratch over: There are many, many more stories like this.