Ancient Mitochondrial DNA and Genetic Variation in Northwest Mexican Populations

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Looking to the West: New insights into Postclassic Archaeology in Michoacán" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The development of genetic sequencing technology has allowed for the recovery of ancient DNA from bone samples belonging to individuals who lived thousands of years ago, opening a window to the past and to better understand the dynamics of ancient civilizations. This study describes the genetic variation found on the mitochondrial genome of 112 individuals from northwest Mexico who lived between 2,000 and 500 years ago. Haplotypes were assigned, genetic diversity was estimated and a principal coordinates analysis was applied to group samples according to their genetic distance. Haplogroup frequencies differ from those found in previous studies from Mesoamerican samples, with a higher prevalence of haplogroups B and C (28% each), A (25%) and D (18%). Four clusters were recovered from the pCoA with a high level of genetic variation, which indicates a great amount of gene flow between populations and that genetic differentiation is better explained by cultural aspects through time, rather than geographical distance.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Looking to the West: New insights into Postclassic Archaeology in Michoacán   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39707.0