Inca and Spanish Empires had a profound impact on Peruvian demography

Open access Evolutionary genomic dynamics of Peruvians before, during, and after the Inca Empire by Harris et al., PNAS (2018) 201720798 (published ahead of print).

Abstract (emphasis mine):

Native Americans from the Amazon, Andes, and coastal geographic regions of South America have a rich cultural heritage but are genetically understudied, therefore leading to gaps in our knowledge of their genomic architecture and demographic history. In this study, we sequence 150 genomes to high coverage combined with an additional 130 genotype array samples from Native American and mestizo populations in Peru. The majority of our samples possess greater than 90% Native

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Population structure in Argentina shows most European sources of South European origin

Open access Population structure in Argentina, by Muzzio et al., PLOS One (2018).

Abstract (emphasis mine):

We analyzed 391 samples from 12 Argentinian populations from the Center-West, East and North-West regions with the Illumina Human Exome Beadchip v1.0 (HumanExome-12v1-A). We did Principal Components analysis to infer patterns of populational divergence and migrations. We identified proportions and patterns of European, African and Native American ancestry and found a correlation between distance to Buenos Aires and proportion of Native American ancestry, where the highest proportion corresponds to the Northernmost populations, which is also the furthest from the Argentinian capital. Most of

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Ancient Patagonian genomes suggest origin and diversification of late maritime hunter-gatherers

Genomic insights into the origin and diversification of late maritime hunter-gatherers from the Chilean Patagonia, by de la Fuente et al. PNAS (2018) published ahead of print.

Abstract (emphasis mine):

Patagonia was the last region of the Americas reached by humans who entered the continent from Siberia ∼15,000–20,000 y ago. Despite recent genomic approaches to reconstruct the continental evolutionary history, regional characterization of ancient and modern genomes remains understudied. Exploring the genomic diversity within Patagonia is not just a valuable strategy to gain a better understanding of the history and diversification of human populations in the southernmost tip of

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Paternal lineages mainly from migrants, maternal lineages mainly from local populations in Argentina

New paper (behind paywall) Genetic variation in populations from central Argentina based on mitochondrial and Y chromosome DNA evidence, by García, Pauro, Bailliet, Bravi & Demarchi, J. Hum. Genet (2018) 63: 493–507.

Abstract (emphasis mine):

We present new data and analysis on the genetic variation of contemporary inhabitants of central Argentina, including a total of 812 unrelated individuals from 20 populations. Our goal was to bring new elements for understanding micro-evolutionary and historical processes that generated the genetic diversity of the region, using molecular markers of uniparental inheritance (mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome). Almost 76% of the individuals show

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Long-term genetic structure in ancestral Native Americans, consistent with the Beringian ‘standstill model’

New article, Terminal Pleistocene Alaskan genome reveals first founding population of Native Americans, by Moreno-Mayar et al.

Abstract:

Despite broad agreement that the Americas were initially populated via Beringia, the land bridge that connected far northeast Asia with northwestern North America during the Pleistocene epoch, when and how the peopling of the Americas occurred remains unresolved. Analyses of human remains from Late Pleistocene Alaska are important to resolving the timing and dispersal of these populations. The remains of two infants were recovered at Upward Sun River (USR), and have been dated to around 11.5 thousand years ago (ka). Here,

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