5,200 years of migrations from Mexico to California could be the origin of a mysterious language

Research led by Nathan Nakatsuka of the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School in Boston found evidence supporting migrations to California from Mexico and the presence of Mexican ancestry in central and southern California dating back about 5,200 years.

In an article titled “Genetic Continuity and Change Among California Native Peoples,” published in Natureresearchers reveal new genetic data that connects ancient individuals and languages ​​to the cultural landscape of ancient California.

The Chumash region of California extends along the coast from Malibu north to Paso Robles, inland to central California, and encompasses the Channel Islands.

The first sequenced DNA from the Chumash region of California dates back at least 7,400 years and was most closely related to modern people of South America and to an Anzick individual from Montana dated to approximately 12,800 years before present and associated with the Clovis culture. .

Anzick’s remains, specifically a young boy named Anzick-1, were discovered alongside Clovis artifacts and are considered among the oldest human remains discovered in North America. Anzick’s genetic profile showed connections and shared ancestry to various indigenous populations across the Americas.

Ancient individuals from Brazil (9,600 BP), Chile (12,000 BP), and a Nevada cave site (10,000 BP) are more closely related to the Montana Anzick-1 boy than to later populations in the same regions or to precocious individuals from the Center. Andes or Peru.

The affinity with the Clovis culture individual persisted for several millennia more in the Chumash region of California than in any other sampled region of the Americas.

Analysis of ancient individuals from northwest Mexico suggests ancestry with early peoples of Peru. This suggests that the indigenous peoples of Mexico had a distinct (Peruvian) lineage that separated from that of the Chumash region of California, Brazil and Chile, pre-Montana Clovis culture 12,800 years ago.

Signs of migrations and mergers

Just before the occupation by Catholic mission forts in California, the Chumash people lived in 150 independent towns and villages with a population of over 25,000. The Chumash spoke six different but closely related Uto-Aztecan languages ​​in the region.

The Uto-Aztec language family has long been a mystery, stretching from Shoshone in Idaho to Pipil in Costa Rica and spanning the American Southwest to Mexico. Although the language is diverse, with dozens of distinct versions, the common root of the language has intrigued researchers because it has yet to provide a precise location of its origin.

There are numerous proposed homelands for the Uto-Aztec, including the Great Basin, the Central Valley of California, the Sonoran Desert, southern Arizona, and central and northern Mexico, with linguistic evidence and archaeological data for each model.

Using genetic clustering of individuals by geography and language with groups likely to have spoken Chumashan, Uto-Aztec and Utian, study finds evidence of large-scale movement of characteristic genetic lineages ancient and modern individuals from northwest Mexico to southern and central California. at least about 5,200 years ago.

This result raises the possibility that this movement was responsible for the spread of Uto-Aztec languages ​​and documents a period of significant migration from the south before the spread of corn agriculture.

A strong genetic relationship was found between the earliest individual from Pacific Grove, Central California, dated to approximately 5,200 years ago and ancient individuals from Baja California.

This result further supports the theory that people speaking languages ​​from an earlier linguistic substrate were once dispersed across large parts of California and that the region’s populations were transformed by new migrants who altered the both genetic and linguistic landscapes.

The Polynesian connection

There was no evidence of Polynesian or Australasian genetic contributions in ancient Californian and northwestern Mexican individuals. This dispels some past attempts to connect the Chumash people with those of Hawaii based on common similarities in elements of Chumash tomolo canoe construction.

Tomolo canoes are often constructed from redwood planks, tied or sewn together, and can be up to 30 feet long. The reasoning behind the Hawaiian contribution comes from the Chumash word for canoe, tomolo’o, which is somewhat similar to the Hawaiian word for “useful tree” or redwood, kumulaa’au. Redwood was a favored wood for Hawaiian canoes, although it had to wash ashore, carried by the favorable direction of winds and tides from California and the Pacific Northwest.

The idea of ​​Polynesian importation ignores the fact that the Chumash inhabited the islands of the archipelago off California for more than 7,500 years, 6,300 years before the arrival of Hawaiians in Hawaii and thousands of years before a Polynesian lived on an island. Even the specific technology with similarities to canoes predates the Hawaiian population by hundreds of years.

With a lack of Polynesian genes in the Americas and winds, currents and timing that oppose a Hawaiian visit to the coastal Chumash region, there may be no connection after all.

New World versus Old World

A little housekeeping is necessary whenever we talk about ancient Native Americans. Although the use of place names like Paso Robles and California is present in this story, the time frames discussed include those long before these names were assigned to them by Europeans.

The study covers a period well before the arrival of current Europeans in Europe or the development of a European language with which they could then name places in what European languages ​​call the “New World”.

This is a useful concept to keep in mind, given that the Americas are frequently cited in geographic and scientific literature as the “New World”, despite their pyramids being older than those of Egypt and evidence of earlier civilizations to ancient Greece, China or any ancestry from another era. Modern European in Europe.

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