Admixture in the pre-Columbian Caribbean

Summary

The biological origin of the Tainos is one of the most controversial issues regarding the population history of the Caribbean. The archaeological evidence suggests an early arrival from Mesoamerica and later arrivals of Arawak speaking groups from the Amazon to the Greater Antilles. We sequenced the control region of 171 Hondurans mtDNAs, 140 of which were of Native American origin, including 119 belonging to haplogroup A2, 20 to B2 and one to C1. We then chose Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic sample pairs belonging to different mtDNA lineages, sequenced their complete mtDNA, and performed phylogenetic reconstruction using 105 continental sequences as reference. Ten out of 19 Caribbean complete mtDNA sequences showed deep roots and no strong association to any continental region. In addition, we found three Dominican and one Puerto Rican A2 lineages with strong association to Central America. We further identified two Dominican A2 and one Puerto Rican C1 lineage associated to South America. Evidence for strong population expansions in different continental regions were suggested but all Caribbean lineages with two exceptions had deeper roots. All data together suggest that Taino mtDNAs have both Central and South American origins.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Perspectives on Early Migrations in the Western Caribbean   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

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