Incidence and Distribution of Native American mtDNA haplogroups in Central Argentina

GARCÍA, ANGELINA; DEMARCHI, DARÍO A.

HUMAN BIOLOGY

Wayne State University Press

Lugar: Detroit, Michigan ; Año: 2009 vol. 81 p. 59 - 69

0018-7143

We report the incidence and distribution of Native AmericanmtDNA haplogroups in nine villages across the Sierras Centrales archeologicalarea, located in central Argentina. The aims of the study were (1) to investigatethe relative incidence of native maternal lineages, (2) to determinewhether or not the homogeneous pattern observed in a previous study persistsat this larger scale, and (3) to ascertain the genetic affinities betweenthe studied population and other native populations of the Southern Cone ofSouth America. Of the 310 individuals from whom DNA was extracted, 249(80.3%) were assigned to one of the founding native American haplogroups.This finding confirms the persistence at high prevalence of native maternallineages in the rural populations of central Argentina. The haplogroup distributionis homogeneous in the population samples from Córdoba province,with haplogroups C and D always found at the highest frequencies. The samplefrom San Luis province, Tilisarao, presents a different genetic pattern,with haplogroups A and B being the most frequent. Principal componentsanalysis and SAMOVA at the regional level show that the Córdoba, Patagonia,and Tierra del Fuego populations cluster together, which suggests a common origin.