DNA of world's oldest natural mummy unlocks secrets of Ice Age tribes in the Americas

November 8, 2018 , University of Cambridge
Skulls and other human remains from P.W. Lund's Collection from Lagoa Santa, Brazil kept in the Natural History Museum of Denmark. Credit: Natural History Museum of Denmark

A legal battle over a 10,600 year old ancient skeleton—called the 'Spirit Cave Mummy' - has ended after advanced DNA sequencing found it was related to a Native American tribe.

The revelation has been published in Science today as part of a wide ranging international study that genetically analysed the DNA of a series of famous and controversial ancient remains across North and South America including Spirit Cave, the Lovelock skeletons, the Lagoa Santa remains, an Inca mummy, and the oldest remains in Chilean Patagonia. The study also looked at the second from Trail Creek Cave in Alaska—a 9,000 year old milk tooth from a young girl.

Scientists sequenced 15 ancient genomes spanning from Alaska to Patagonia and were able to track the movements of the first humans as they spread across the Americas at "astonishing" speed during the Ice Age, and also how they interacted with each other in the following millennia.

The team of academics not only discovered that the Spirit Cave remains—the world's oldest natural mummy—was a Native American but they were able to dismiss a longstanding theory that a group called Paleoamericans existed in North America before Native Americans.

The ground-breaking research also discovered clues of a puzzling Australasian genetic signal in the 10,400 year old Lagoa Santa remains from Brazil revealing a previously unknown group of early South Americans—but the Australasian link left no genetic trace in North America. It was described by one of the scientists as 'extraordinary evidence of an extraordinary chapter in human history'.

Professor Eske Willerslev, who holds positions both at St John's College, University of Cambridge, and the University of Copenhagen, and led the study, said: "Spirit Cave and Lagoa Santa were very controversial because they were identified as so-called 'Paleoamericans' based on craniometry—it was determined that the shape of their skulls was different to current day Native Americans. Our study proves that Spirit Cave and Lagoa Santa were actually genetically closer to contemporary Native Americans than to any other ancient or contemporary group sequenced to date."

The Lagoa Santa remains were retrieved by Danish explorer Peter W. Lund in the 19th century and his work led to this 'Paleoamerican hypothesis' based on cranial morphology that theorised the famous group of skeletons could not be Native Americans. But this new study disproves that theory and the findings were launched under embargo by Professor Willerslev with representatives from the Brazilian National Museum in Rio on Tuesday, November 6 2018.




The request was refused because the ancestry was disputed, the tribe sued the federal government and the lawsuit pitted tribal leaders against anthropologists, who argued the remains provided invaluable insights into North America's earliest inhabitants and should continue to be displayed in a museum.

The deadlock continued for 20 years until the tribe agreed that Professor Willerslev could carry out genome sequencing on DNA extracted from the Spirit Cave for the first time.





Professor Eske Willerslev with Donna and Joey, two members of the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone tribe. Credit: Linus Mørk, Magus Film


A statement from the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, said: "The Tribe has had a lot of experience with members of the scientific community, mostly negative. However, there are a handful of scientists that seemed to understand the Tribe's perspective and Eske Willerslev was one of them.



Dr. David Meltzer, from the Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, said: "A striking thing about the analysis of Spirit Cave and Lagoa Santa is their close genetic similarity which implies their ancestral population travelled through the continent at astonishing speed. That's something we've suspected due to the archaeological findings, but it's fascinating to have it confirmed by the genetics. These findings imply that the first peoples were highly skilled at moving rapidly across an utterly unfamiliar and empty landscape. They had a whole continent to themselves and they were travelling great distances at breath-taking speed."








More information: J.V. Moreno-Mayar el al., "Early human dispersals within the Americas," Science (2018). science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi … 1126/science.aav2621

Provided by: University of Cambridge