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Demographic history and genetic structure in pre-Hispanic Central Mexico

2023; American Association for the Advancement of Science; Volume: 380; Issue: 6645 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1126/science.add6142

1095-9203

Viridiana Villa-Islas, Alan Izarraras-Gomez, Maximilian Larena, Elizabeth Mejía Pérez Campos, Marcela Sandoval‐Velasco, Juan Esteban Rodríguez-Rodríguez, Miriam Bravo-Lopez, Bárbara Moguel, Rosa Fregel, Ernesto Garfias-Morales, Jazeps Medina Tretmanis, David Alberto Velázquez-Ramírez, Alberto Herrera-Muñóz, Karla Sandoval, Maria A. Nieves‐Colón, Gabriela Zepeda García Moreno, Fernando A. Villanea, Eugenia Fernández Villanueva Medina, Ramiro Aguayo-Haro, Cristina Valdiosera, Alexander G. Ioannidis, Andrés Moreno‐Estrada, Flora Jay, Emilia Huerta‐Sánchez, J. Víctor Moreno-Mayar, Federico Sánchez‐Quinto, María C. Ávila‐Arcos,

Archaeology and ancient environmental studies

Aridoamerica and Mesoamerica are two distinct cultural areas in northern and central Mexico, respectively, that hosted numerous pre-Hispanic civilizations between 2500 BCE and 1521 CE. The division between these regions shifted southward because of severe droughts ~1100 years ago, which allegedly drove a population replacement in central Mexico by Aridoamerican peoples. In this study, we present shotgun genome-wide data from 12 individuals and 27 mitochondrial genomes from eight pre-Hispanic archaeological sites across Mexico, including two at the shifting border of Aridoamerica and Mesoamerica. We find population continuity that spans the climate change episode and a broad preservation of the genetic structure across present-day Mexico for the past 2300 years. Lastly, we identify a contribution to pre-Hispanic populations of northern and central Mexico from two ancient unsampled "ghost" populations.