Ancient and modern mitogenomes from Central Argentina: new insights into population continuity, temporal depth and migration in South America

GARCÍA A, NORES R, MOTTI JMB, PAURO M, LUISI P, BRAVI CM, FABRA M, GOSLING AL, KARDAILSKY O, BOOCOCK J, SOLÉ-MORATA N, MATISOO-SMITH EA, COMAS D, DEMARCHI DA

HUMAN MOLECULAR GENETICS

OXFORD UNIV PRESS

Lugar: Oxford; Año: 2021 vol. 30 p. 1200 - 1217

0964-6906

The inverted triangle shape of South America placesArgentina territory as a geographical crossroads between the two principalpeopling streams that followed either the Pacific or the Atlantic coasts, which could have thenmerged in Central Argentina. Although the genetic diversity from this region is thereforecrucial to decipher past population movements in South America, itscharacterization has been overlooked so far. We report 92 modern and 22 ancient mitogenomes spanning atemporal range of 5,000 years, which were compared to a large set of previously reporteddata. Leveraging this dataset representative of the mitochondrial diversity of thesubcontinent, we investigate the maternal history of Central Argentina populations within a widergeographical context. We describe a large number of novel clades within the mitochondrialDNA tree, thus providing new phylogenetic interpretations for South America.We also identify several local clades of great temporal depth with continuity untilpresent that stem directly from the founder haplotypes, suggesting that they originated inthe region and expanded from there. Moreover, the presence of lineagescharacteristic of other South American regions reveals the existence of gene flow to CentralArgentina. Finally, we report some lineages with discontinuous distribution across the Americas,which suggest the persistence of relic lineages likely linked to the first populationarrivals. The present study represents to date the most exhaustive attempt to elaborate aNative American genetic map from modern and ancient complete mitochondrial genomes inArgentina and provides relevant information about the general process of settlement inSouth America.