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Skulls and other human remains from the PW Lund collection in Lagoa Santa (Brazil), preserved in the Natural History Museum of Denmark.
Museum of Natural History of Denmark
The sequencing of ancient DNA has definitely shown that the oldest natural mummy in the world – a 10,700-year-old skeleton discovered in Nevada nearly 80 years ago – was Native American.
A team led by Eske Willerslev, professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Cambridge, traced migrations of ancient humans across the Americas. from the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone tribe.
The mummy, a 40-year-old man at the time of his death, was discovered for the first time in 1940 by Sydney and George Wheeler in a Nevada dry cave, wrapped in a blanket and a mat of reeds. The arid conditions preserved the remains, the head remaining completely intact and the remains were transferred to the Nevada State Museum.
In 1996, radiocarbon dating showed that the remains were about 9,400 years old, making it the oldest mummy in North America. A year later, the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone tribe claimed to repatriate the bones, but access to the remains was initially denied. After obtaining permission from the tribe, Willerslev conducted a genetic analysis of the bones in 2016, showing that the mummy was closely related to Native Americans. As a result, the body was handed over to the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone tribe and reentered.
The findings are part of a much larger international study that has traced the historical movement of humans in North and South America. An in-depth DNA analysis of 600 to 12,000-year-old human remains found throughout the Americas has shown that humans moved rapidly across continents during the Ice Age 13,000 years ago.
The comparison of DNA profiles and the search for similarities in ancient relics discovered from Alaska to Patagonia have helped the team of researchers understand how humans have moved across the region during the summer. 39, ancient history. A second study, published in Cell Thursday, investigated genetic changes over the last 11,000 years, finding genetic relationships between samples from Chile, Brazil and those found in Montana at similar times.
Based on the analysis, new research suggests that humans disperse rapidly in North and South America about 10,000 years ago.
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