GENETICS REVEAL A NEW TRUTH ABOUT ANCIENT CARIBBEAN PEOPLES

"We can consider them the first," a researcher tells Inverse.

TARA YARLAGADDA
2 HOURS AGO

WORLD HISTORY has often been filtered through a very Euro-centric bent. Textbooks have too often ignored or downplayed the rich history of the Americas prior to European contact.

But new research published in the journal Nature focuses on these little-understood groups of pre-contact people, reshaping our understanding of indigenous ancestry and the formation of an ancient civilization in the Caribbean.

WHAT THEY FOUND — The study concerns the genetic origins of peoples that migrated to the Caribbean at two different times: the Archaic and Ceramic ages. The researchers studied the DNA of 174 different ancient individuals using radiocarbon dating and genome analysis.

Kendra Sirak, a lead co-author on the study and postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, tells Inverse her team confirmed these are ancient people were first to arrive.

"These archaic people — we can consider them the first people to move into the Caribbean," Sirak says.

The Archaic people predominantly used stone tools, which is how archaeologists can easily identify them. The study records evidence of a 3,100-year-old individual from the Archaic era, but humans likely first settled in the Caribbean around 6,000 years ago.

More:
https://www.inverse.com/science/genetics-reveal-truth-about-ancient-caribbean-peoples