A paper published in Nature Ecology & Evolution on July 31st reveals that Luzio, the oldest human skeleton found in the state of São Paulo (Brazil), is descended from ancestors who settled in the Americas at least 16,000 years ago and gave birth to the Tupi people and other current indigenous peoples. The study reported in this paper is the first to show that the oldest human remains, Ruzio, are descended from ancestors who settled in the Americas at least 16,000 years ago and gave rise to current indigenous peoples such as the Tupi.
The study reported in this paper also provides an explanation for the disappearance of the oldest coastal community, based on Brazil’s largest archaeological genome data. The inhabitants of this community established an icon of Brazilian archaeology known as the “Sambaqui.” Archaeologists often refer to these sites as shell mounds or kitchen mounds.
The people who built Sambaqui on the Atlantic coast after the Andean civilization were the most densely populated human phenomenon in pre-colonial South America. They were “kings of the coast” for thousands and thousands of years. They were the most densely populated human phenomenon in pre-colonial South America,” says André Menezes Straus, archaeologist at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of the University of São Paulo (MAE-USP) and principal investigator of the study.
The authors analyzed the genomes of 34 samples from four different regions of coastal Brazil. These fossils are at least 10,000 years old. They were collected from Sambaqui and other parts of eight archaeological sites (Cabeçuda, Capelinha, Cubatão, Limão, Jabuticabeira II, Palmeiras Xingu, Pedra do Alexandre and Vau Una).
This included Luzio, the oldest skeleton in São Paulo, which was found in the Capelinha River in the Ribeira de Iguape Valley by a group led by MAE-USP professor Levi Figuti. The skull’s morphology is similar to that of Luzia, the oldest human fossil found in South America to date, which is about 13,000 years old. Researchers thought the fossil belonged to a biologically distinct group from the current American Indians who settled in what is now Brazil about 14,000 years ago, but they turned out to be wrong.
Genetic analysis showed that the Luzios were American Indians like the Tupi, Quechua, and Cherokee. But from a global perspective, they all originated from a single migratory wave that reached the Americas 16,000 years ago. If there had been another group 30,000 years ago, that group would not have descended from these groups,” Straus says. Luzio’s DNA also answered another question. Because riverine pottery is different from coastal pottery, this find cannot be considered a direct ancestor of the later emergence of the classic giant sambaki. This finding suggests that there were two distinct migrations, one inland and one along the coast.
What happened to the Sambaki people?
Analysis of genetic material reveals heterogeneous communities with cultural similarities but significant biological differences, especially between the southeastern and southern coastal communities.
Says Straus, “Cranial morphology studies conducted in the 2000s already pointed to subtle differences between these communities, but this genetic analysis confirms them.” One reason for this is that these coastal populations were not isolated, but were “exchanging genes” with inland populations. Over thousands of years, this process probably led to regional differences among the Sambaqui.”
As for the mysterious disappearance of this coastal civilization composed of the first hunter-gatherers of the Holocene, analysis of DNA samples reveals that, in contrast to the replacement of entire populations during the European Neolithic, what occurred in this region was a change in practices, with a decrease in shell mound construction and the introduction of pottery by Sambaqui builders It is clear that this was not the case. For example, the genetic material found at the most emblematic site of this period, Galeta IV (Santa Catarina), contains remains of pottery rather than shells, and in this respect it resembles the classical sambaqui.
“This information is consistent with a 2014 study that analyzed pottery fragments recovered from Sambaqui and found that the pots in question were used to cook fish, not domesticated vegetables. They appropriated inland techniques to process foods that were already traditionally there,” Strauss says.
Source: DNA Reveals that Luzio, Who Lived in São Paulo 10,000 Years Ago, Was an American Indian Like Today’s Indigenous Peoples