Argentinean Patagonian Mapuche Ancestry Analysed by Surnames and Genetic Markers.

CORACH D., SALA A. , MARINO M. , BRAVI CM. , BOBILLO MC.

Insbruck-Austria

Congreso; 5th International Y-User Workshop "The Y chromosome in forensic, clinical and evolutionarygenetics"; 2006

A reduced number of Amerindian ethnic groups still remains in the nowadays territory of Argentina. The Mapuche population that inhabits many Central and Southern Argentinean provinces derived from the Araucans from Chile. This ethnic group developed a complex culture and consequently a spoken language, however its linguistic affinities are unclear, its development preludes the Spanish conquest, occurred in early XV century. Lineages adopted linguistic elements to identify their family members (e.g. cura -stone- define members of a certain family group, calfu cura -blue stone- was a member of the Cura family). Although the Mapuche descendant pretended to be almost eliminated by different wars in both sides of the Andes, still persist and many of them used their ancestral names included in the surnames. At present the family names are inherited patrilineally according to the Argentinean laws. From the forensic point of view the feasibility to identify ancestral lineages becomes relevant since aboriginal organizations claims for their stolen territories to governments. In order to investigate the correlation between cultural (surnames) and genetic markers  Y-SNPs and D-Loop mtDNA sequences, suitable for ancestry tracing a set of volunteer male unrelated donors (N=139) from the Patagonian provinces of Rio Negro (N=79) and Chubut (N=60) were considered. Within each geographical region two subsets were selected based in their surnames. Individuals with surnames that included Mapuche linguistic elements from Rio Negro (N=37) and from Chubut (N= 31) and those with European surnames from Rio Negro (N=42) and Chubut (N= 29) were investigated. Surnames, the Amerindian Y-specific haplogroup (hg) M3-Q3, determined by typing locus DYS199 and mtDNA hg A, B, C and D, determined by HVRI, II and III by sequencing, were employed as independent ancestry tracing parameters. In addition, 15 autosomal STRs (13 Codis core + Penta D and E) and the nine Y-STRs included in the YHRD minimal haplotype, were used to determine the Fst values and genetic distances for each ancestry evaluation approach. In both provinces a 97% of the individuals with Mapuche surname also depicted Amerindian matri and/or patrilineage.  Mean while, in Rio Negro and Chubut only 18% and 17%, respectively, of the sample denoted neither aboriginal surname nor Amerindian genetic ancestry markers. The most prevalent west European mtDNA haplogroup were H (6.5%), U5 (4.3%) and K (2.8%), followed by T (1.4%), V (0.7%), X (0.7%) and M (0.7%), also the African L hg was detected with low frequency (1.4%). Our results confirmed the close correlation between surnames with Mapuche linguistic elements and the genetic ancestry markers. However, it must be emphasized that this correlation is not Mapuche-specific, but Amerindian-specific, at present efforts are being made by our group, to identify ethnic-specific informative genetic ancestry markers. Concerning the forensic relevance it should be proposed the combined use of both, cultural (surnames) and genetic ancestry markers when an ancestry diagnosis is required.